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Al Christmas Allegorical Story of Birds 


CONNECTED WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF SPARROWS INTO THE 


NEW WORLD. 


BY 


REV. AUG. J. THEBAUD, 8J. 


NEW YORK: 
Pateeaer Oreos El CASE TLON <SO.CILEDY “Gon, 
g BARCLAY STREET. 
1881. 


1, by 


J. 
D, S. 
THEBAUD, 

A. J. 


Cop: 


yright, 188 


t 
« 
CON THN Ts: 
PAGE 
CHAPTER I. 
; _ CHAPTER II. 
gin of the Twit-Twats, . ; 4 A 7 - ' ee 2 


CHAPTER III. 


orrowful Christmas Wanste,i8 cee Nene Sere. PRES gs i eg See at 
. - + od 4 


CHAPTER IV. ; 


CHAPTER V.  — 


—— 


Description of some strange Natural Habits of the Twit-Twats considered as Types of 
ee eeanbeinreas eh Uhm re tem ee ST RS a ee ta 


CHAPTER VI. 


Beginning of a fierce Battle between two hostile Tribes of Birds, ©. ails - Ko 


- 


CHAPTER VII. 


ttle-Field and the first great Twit-Twat Victory, . . .« ¢ ¢ » 45 
S:. ¢-—s “tke a i gas, 


4 CONTENTS. 
PAGE 


CHAPTER VIII. . 


Suspension of Hostilities—Mating of the Birds—Building of their Nests, . es - 682 
CHAPTER IX. 

Ominous Rising of a new Native Leader—Maultiplication of both Races, : : . - & 
CHAPTER X. 


The Sparrows’ Rustication ended by an eventful Catastrophe—Return of the Birds, . . 69 


CHAPTER XI. 


War again and Confusion—Final Success of the Twit-Twats, : : Semat aee 'c - 81 


CHAPTER XII. 


Christmas again—The Winter Festival of the Sparrows, : : . . see 


PRB AC EH. 


HE details of natural history contained in these pages can be tho- 
roughly relied upon, for they have all been witnessed and carefully 
observed by the writer. Some of these details are generally known, 
others have escaped the attention of naturalists. It is to be hoped that 
none of them will be disdainfully set aside as far-fetched or impro- 
bable. They are all the result of strict and conscientious observation. 

The inference they point out with regard to a numerous class of 
human beings is also—the writer hopes—perfectly natural, nay, strik- 
ing. It is not given, however, as absolute truth. Still, the coincidences on both 
sides are so remarkable and so many that it is difficult not to admit a close connec- 
tion between both. But, particularly as the book is intended for ‘“‘the amusement 

- of young and grown children,”’ there is no great fear that criticism will be too harsh 

on the author, who writes throughout with the greatest simplicity and good- 

nature, and with a desire to please. Besides, this is not a philosophical disquisition, 
requiring the greatest attention to principles and conclusions, authorities and histori- 
cal sources, dates, texts, learned languages, critical discussion of doubtful points, etc., 
etc. Consequently there will be no foot-notes, or very few. Finally, the intention is 
not to impose the writer’s ipse dizit on the reader, who will suit his own taste on the 

subject and admit the resemblance or reject it as he likes, provided he does not im- 

pugn the writer’s motives nor accuse him of deliberate untruth. 

We have seen with our own eyes the sparrows establish their quarters in spite of 
numerous obstacles, fight with the elements, endure the hardships of winter and enjoy 
the sweetness of summer, visibly enter into friendship and alliance with some of their 
congeners, and engage in bitter strife with others of the same family. We have wit- 
nessed their fights, their conquests, their triumphs ; their domestic felicity or the re- 
verse ; the subordination in their families or their contentions and feuds ; the use they 
make of the cottages given them, or the building of their awkward nests. All these 
have attracted our notice, as well as their “‘rustication’’ at the end of summer and 
their choice of residences for our long winters. These facts and many others must be 
now admitted as acquired to ‘“‘science,’’? according to the usual language of the day ; 

5 


6 PREFACE. 


and the man would be a severe critic indeed who should refuse to admit that human 
beings very often offer to an attentive observer the same material, social, moral phe- 
nomena. This is all we contend for; and this once admitted, the close weaving of our 
story must be conceded by all critics, severe or not. - 

The series of observations here detailed at length comprise a whole year, from 
Christmas, 187-, to the same epoch in 187-. The first was a hard day on the poor spar- 
rows ; the second, on the contrary, happened to be a glorious one, ending in triumph 
and delirious joy. If some few of our young readers, on Christmas day of this present 
year, are sad and dejected on account of some mishap, their courage may be sup- 
ported by the example of the birds. For the greater number, however, we hope it 
will be a season of unalloyed contentment; and by these the whole book will be read 
with relish, particularly the last pages, which close on a grand tableau of frisky gam- 
bols and true merry-making. Besides, for the Christian, sadness itself becomes sweet 
at the sight of a new-born Saviour, for, as the French carol says: 


«« Si ses doux yeux versent des pleurs, : 
C’est bien pour nos péchés et non pas ses douleurs.” * 


Still, on His face in the crib we oftener see smiles than tears. On His Mother's 
knees, and with angels around, there is in His eyes such a glimpse of heaven that the 
heaviest misfortunes are lightened and the raging storms of human passion are calmed. 
He brought gentle peace to earth. Thus, for everybody the coming of Christ is the hap- 
piest as well as the holiest season of the year; and even creatures deprived of reason 
seem to feel it and to receive their share of simple joy and hearty pleasure at that sea- 
son. No wonder that among birds particularly this should take place. They are half 
angels by their wings, and they fill the air with their songs, the same as cherubs and 
seraphs, raising their voice around the throne of God, enrapture heaven by an everlast- 
ing harmony. 


* From His soft eyes, alas! salt tears do flow, 
But our own sin, not pain of His, ’tis gives Him sorrow. 


Tee TAVITA WATS. 


CHAPTER IL. 


PRELIMINARY. 


GLANCE at some previous occurrences is necessary before our true story 
begins ; for the Twit-Twat family could not be sufficiently known unless 
we went back to its progenitors. They are not natives of North America ; 
they are adopted citizens, and their place of origin and the various cir- 
cumstances of their immigration must be narrated in detail, if we wish 
to understand their history. The portentous Christmas day which de- 
cided their destiny on their first introduction into the city of Troy on 
the Hudson was not—far from it—the beginning of their existence as 
a race. They could claim a long line of ancestors ; and to know well 
their aptitudes, their characteristics, what they like or dislike, their phy- 

sical and moral leanings—everything, in fact, which ethnographers are very exact in 
giving in full when they speak of any family, tribe, or nation—something, at, least, 
of their former life in the Old World must be hastily sketched and faithfully de- 
scribed, in order to render more intelligible the rather queer antics they began to play 
as soon as they landed on the broad expanse of the New World. In particular, why 
they came must be laid down first, or their subsequent history could not be at all 
understood. : 

An immense calamity threatening the splendid city of New York was the cause 
of their introduction into North America. People at this moment may have forgotten 
it. It is proper to refresh the memory of the thoughtless, for whom the greatest facts 
of history pass on unperceived and are buried the day after in the tomb of the Capulets. 

New York is indeed a vast city, with avenues ten miles long from south to north, 
with cross-streets running from the East River to the broad Hudson, with stately 
public buildings and palatial houses rising to heaven and defying the skies. From 
all parts of the continent people come to live init. At the time our story opens there 


were none of the elevated railroads which now transport you in a moment from the 
7 


New York Parks eaten up by Worms—Sparrows Introduced. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 9 


Battery to the Harlem River; but the streets were already crowded with horse-cars 
running in all directions—along the avenues, through a great number of cross-streets, 
following the curving line of the wharves and piers, or, in belt fashion, through the 
heart of the monster. As to the number of carts, wagons, carriages, vehicles of every 
description, who could count them? Hear the noise, listen to the public venders, to 
the hoarse newsboys, to the laughing urchins, to the shrill-voiced little girls, and tell 
me how you are pleased with such a concert! See the hurrying pedestrians on the 
sidewalks, cross-streets, in every possible and impossible direction. Do you find any- 
thing of the kind in Paris, in Naples, in Constantinople, in Pekin? Consider, in fine, 
the whole surface of Manhattan Island—which the Dutch, it is said, bought from the 
Indians for the mighty sum of sixteen dollars and a quarter—and inform me, if you 
can, of the actual value of its real estate now, if your purse were large enough to 
purchase the whole! But, in spite of an apparent confusion, you must admire this 
broad metropolis, sitting like a queen in front of an incomparable bay, and skirted 
right and left by two mighty streams covered with vessels from all the seaports of the 
world. 

Nor was there, at the time our story begins, any question yet of bridging the 
Harlem River, or of grading the rocky surface of Westchester County for extending 
out there the boulevards and avenues of the city. Still, the city was already so vast 
that the miniature parks formerly planted to afford recreation and fresh air to the 
overworked citizens were now become far too small for any useful purpose, and could 
not, except with an evident abuse of language, be called the ‘lungs’ of so huge a 
body. Central Park, therefore, had been planned, and trees and shrubs planted, ready 
to grow, and shoot out their leaves, and open their sweet blossoms. Hight hundred 
acres of ground! There surely would be shade and coolness, especially on Sunday 
afternoons in summer. 

But the hopeful citizens saw with terror the frailty of their hopes when immense 
armies of ugly, slimy, ferociously active caterpillars began to swarm on all the trees 
planted in the streets, on all the green shrubs and herbs of the small pleasure-grounds 
crowded with children every afternoon. Before the end of summer all these pretended 
parks were generally deserted as worse for shade and coolness than the streets and 
dusty avenues even. The trees in Union Square had been devoured ; the sycamores in 
Washington Square were become merely huge stumps deprived of all beauty ; the 
young plantations in Madison Square, scarcely green the year before, seemed ready to 
die before autumn; and, worse than all, black battalions of the devouring hordes 
appeared to be already trending their way up north towards the last hope of the be- 
wildered citizens. Central Park itself seemed to be doomed ! 

Then a cry of anguish issued forth from all lungs and all throats; men were ready 
to give up everything in despair, when certain benevolent and intelligent individuals 
suddenly broke out in a loud exclamation: ‘‘ We must have sparrows !”’ 

The Twit-Twat family was not comprised in the first broods brought in from 


10 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


Europe, so that we have not closely to investigate the origin of these first immigrants. 
We doubt the truth, however, of what was generally said at the time, that they were 
in the bulk English, or perhaps Scotch, birds, and we may confidently declare some 
of our reasons, which, it is hoped, will not prove uninteresting to the reader. It is not, 
certainly, about the rich mansions of the West End of London that sparrows will natu- 
rally be prolific ; they could scarcely find there the homely quarters where they like 
to nestle, and the burly London servants would never be good-natured enough to spread 
crumbs and seeds for them in time of scarcity. As to insects and worms in summer, 
the sparrow might as well look for them in the sea or on the bare rocks. The 
country villages, also, and the farms of plenteous England are often too prim and well 
kept for the rather loose habits of the sparrows, and rustic boys are too fond of catching 
small birds to allow them an indefinite increase. Consequently, though our eyes have 
never been blessed with a sight of Great Britain, it can be said with assurance that 
sparrows are not very common in England, at least comparatively. The same may be 
said toa great degree of the northern kingdom, except, perhaps, of the Highlands, which 
were, however, too far out of the way for the purpose in question. A large number of 
birds were required ; Ireland, therefore, was the only place where they could be found in 
any quantity, chiefly the counties of Wexford and Waterford, the nearest to Great 
Britain, whence they could be carried by stealth to Liverpool, and there muster for 
English or Scotch birds, as you prefer. 

Yes, all over Ireland they swarm! The country is exactly made for them. The 
few immense parks and rich mansions of absentee landlords they can afford to pass by ; 
but there are numberless villages, hamlets, farm-houses just made for them; ruins with 
holes and cavities ; trees and shrubs growing wild around the hut of the cottier, and 
chiefly the eaves of the thatched cottages; churches on the roofs of which they can 
chirp to their hearts’ content ; plenty of worms and insects, which, everybody knows, are 
their dainty tidbits and the principal food of their young. As to the people, they are 

‘just made to please the sparrows, as the sparrows are made to please them. Both peo- 

ple and sparrows are noisy, lively, sociable, humble in their garb, easily satisfied, en- 
during hardships without murmur, prolific beyond calculation, always jolly, inde- 
structible as a race, spreading out over large continents, but unable to cross the seas 
unless they are carried across. Who shall say that they cannot agree together? So 
that you may go wherever you like in Ireland, and you will find sparrows in abun- 
dance. 

When they first arrived in New York the birds were petted as they had never 
been before, as they never expected to be. Brightly painted little houses had been 
built for them, with numerous rows of nice little holes, and capacious chambers inside. 
These houses were placed on the tops of long poles which were set up in the various 
parks of the city, or they were nailed to the branches of far-spreading trees. Many a 
citizen hung up at least one small sparrow-cottage in the tree which tried to grow in 
front of his door. As to crumbs and dainty bits, there was perfect recklessness : think 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 11 


of pound-cake and sponge-cake, broken macaroons and marchpane! Had ever such 
a table been spread anywhere else before any family of the passer kind? Hence the 
sparrows began soon to thrive, and there was a comparative decrease in the ugly army 
of caterpillars. 

It was among the aristocratic classes especially of the New World that these kind 
feelings had been manifested in favor of the little Irish strangers ; and although some 
men would not have objected to receiving them from the neighborhood of Waterford 
as well as from that of Birmingham, still there is no doubt in our mind that there 
would not have been so reckless an expenditure of cake and kindness generally had the 
real origin of the birds been known. They profited, therefore, by the obscurity thrown 
purposely around the place they came from ; and some rich families having fine stone- 

front houses on Fifth Avenue and around Stuyvesant Square, with large and handsome 

creepers running to the very top of the buildings and about the doors and windows, 
had no hesitation in placing the newly-arrived birds among the rich foliage and the 
entangled vegetation, there to build their nests and chirp all day long in the very iron 
frames of the balconies. Do you suppose, gentle reader, that many ladies would have 
allowed them to peep through the grating of the windows into their very rooms and 
boudoirs, had they known that these inquisitive little fellows were fresh from Irish 
cottages, and perhaps from the moors of Tipperary? Yet so it was; but at the time 
no one suspected it, and it was only much later on that the native country of the birds 
finally became known, to the disgust of many highly aristocratic families of the original 
Dutch or English stock, who in some instances—as we shall soon mention in detail— 
had to cut to the very roots of the creepers in which the most favored sparrows had 
nestled and multiplied. 

These preliminary remarks were necessary to introduce the interesting family of 
which it is now proper to give a detailed account. 


CHAPTER ITI. 


ORIGIN OF THE TWIT-TWATS. 


EW YORK was already full of sparrows when the Twit-Twats came 
upon the scene and were taken directly very far up the Hudson to the 
very head of navigation—as school geographies tell us—to the thriving 
city of Troy. We have taken great pains to ascertain everything con- 
cerning them, for we must not be satisfied here with generalities, but 
must state positively every particular with all the proofs thereof ; 
otherwise this would not be a history but a chronicle. 

During a residence of many years in Troy we became acquainted 
with an Irishman called O’ Murphy—Murrogh O’Murphy: he had not dropped the O, 
as most of the tribe have done, we must say, reluctantly, to their disgrace. It was 
sufficient to look at him and talk a few moments with him to be persuaded that he be- 
longed to the great clan of the O’ Murphys, a branch of the Hy-Felimy, the nearest 
neighbors, in the south of Ireland, to the celebrated tribe of the Hy-Kinsellas. Mur- 
rogh O’ Murphy was from the county of Wexford, of course, and had spent all his life 
in the suburbs of New Ross, at the confluence of the Nore and the Barrow, as his an- 
cestors had done for many ages before him. It was’ he, or rather his boy William, 
who brought the Twit-Twats to Troy. 

At the time we became acquainted with this family the birds lived in a Lombardy 
poplar under our windows, and we had witnessed many queer facts concerning them, 
which the reader will soon hear with great interest. We. were, therefore, naturally 
very curious to know something of their previous history; and this, in substance, is 
what Murrogh O’ Murphy related, with more details than would, perhaps, be pleasant 
to some of our readers, so that we shall abridge his narrative, though the main facts 
must be given. 

From the door of the humble cottage occupied by the O’ Murphys in New Ross 
you can yet see the high steeple of the new church erected not long ago by the good 
Augustinian friars, on the very site of the old convent chapel confiscated at the Refor- 
mation and turned into a Protestant parish church. The Church-of-Ireland men in 
New Ross, more generous than many others of the same denomination, gave it back 


more than fifty years ago to the original owners at a nominal rent of ten shillings, 
12 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 13 


because they intended to transfer their parochial centre to a more fashionable part of 
the town. Thus the Augustinian friars came back into their own, and forthwith 
erected an edifice famous to this day, whose spire can be seen to a great distance. The 
foundation stone was laid in 1830 by the Very Rev. Daniel O’ Connor, O.S.A., afterwards 
Bishop of Saldes ; and the Very Rev. James Crane, O.8.A., then prior, labored hard 
to make the holy work a complete success in every respect. Near that new church 
stood, and stands probably yet, the gray ruins of an old Gothic structure surmounted 
by a cross which some said had belonged to the confiscated Augustinian convent, and 
some others—we are positively of this last opinion—thought were the remains of 
an old priory of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, which, according to Allemande, 
was founded at Ross at a very early period, and long before the order of Augustinian 
‘friars was established in 1320 under Edward III. It was, therefore, an affair of ancient 
Ireland, and nothing else 

This is all perfectly historical—mind it well—and the reader sees that we are 
profuse and precise in our statements. Should he wish to ascertain their accuracy he 
may look into the History of the Augustinians, by Father Herrera, a learned 
Spaniard ; into the Antiquities of Ware onthe reign of Edward III. ; and into the 
details given by all accurate historians of the spoliations of Henry VIIL., particularly 
of his dealings with the abbeys of Dunbrody, Tintern, Ferns, and the convent of Ross 
at the time of their suppression. 

The only reason we can assign for these learned references is the necessity of pre- 
cision with respect to the ancestors of the Twit-Twats. They had lived from time im- 
memorial in the ruins of the old priory, more than a thousand years old, and young 
William O’ Murphy, at that time a boy of ten, had frequently seen them in the moul- 
dering walls ; and he was greatly surprised—we have this from himself—when, as soon 
as the new church was built, a swarm of them alighted on the steeple on a certain day 
that he was on the lookout, and began to nestle in some holes which the masons 
had left, perhaps purposely for them, around the spire. There they twittered undis- 
turbed for a good many years, and many of them, or their Gesconfants,) we are sure, 
twitter there at present. 

The ancestors of the Twit-Twats, therefore, had inhabited the County Wexford 
from the very origin of sparrowdom. They were twittering along the Barrow when 
Lavra-the-mariner—we spare you the Gaelic name—the son of Olioll-Aine, came back 
from Gaul, and, going up the river with his cwrraghs, attacked Coftagh, the usurper of 
Leinster, and burned him in his palace of Dinn-Righ, a short distance from what is 
now Leighlinbridge. 

The name of the future celebrated County Wexford was not then even known. 
It is of Danish origin, and one of the very few words which alone still attest in our 
days that the ferocious Scandinavians ever landed in Ireland. The ancient Twit-Twats, 
from their elevated position under the stone cross of the old Augustinian priory, wit- 
nessed, no doubt, the barbarities of the followers of Turgesius the Dane. Many of 


14 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


them, perhaps, were smoked out of their usual haunts along the Barrow and the Nore by 
the incendiary pirates. Still, their progeny again covered the whole land when Strong- 
bow came over with his Anglo-Normans. The Twit-Twats, frightened at first by the 
new invaders, were at last reconciled—the unpatriotic rogues !—to the sway of the feu- 
dal barons by the refuge afforded them in the innumerable castles built on the whole 
surface of the island from sea to sea. Who has not seen in Europe the swarms of 
sparrows around those huge and frowning battlements, the only standing relics of now 
extinct feudalism? Yet it must be said to the honor of these birds that they in 
general prefer the churches to the castles; and as the Fitzgeralds, Fitzharrises, Fitz- 
henrys, and Talbots, their nearest neighbors at the confluence of the Barrow and the 
Suir, built churches as well as castles, this may explain the real attachment that has 
always subsisted between the Twit-Twats and the descendants of Strongbow’ s follow- 
ers, without any peril to their orthodoxy. 

It would be too long to go through the subsequent events of this interesting his- 
tory, and relate the frequent changes and sad fortunes which Protestantism brought 
to the birds as well as to men; but this brings us down to the apparently forgotten 
thread of our history. . 

Murrogh O’Murphy had seen many of his personal friends depart for America, 
when he himself thought of emigrating to the New World. All his preparations were 
soon made, and he intended to go down the Barrow to Waterford, in order to take 
ship for Liverpool, and thence to cross the sea in a steamship for New York. 

But his son William looked with regret at his friends the Twit-Twats, whom he was 
going to leave behind. Scarcely a day of his life had passed without thinking of 
them, looking at them, and speaking of them ; and it was a painful sacrifice to be re- 
duced to a bare remembrance for the remainder of his days. He thought, indeed, of 
catching some few of the brood and carrying them with him; but how was he to ob- 
tain permission from his father, who very likely would laugh at his nonsense ?—when, lo 
and behold! just a week before their departure a letter from a friend in New York 
was received, relating at length the introduction of the sparrows in the New World, 
not forgetting to dwell on the extravagance of some American citizens in favor of the 
homely birds, and hinting that a few dozens imported in a good-sized cage might go 
far to pay the whole expense of the voyage. William had thus a fine opportunity 
which he did not neglect; and he saw with pleasure that, instead of catching two or 
three and concealing them as best he might in a small, dark cage, he could now openly 
set his traps for a whole week, make prisoners of as many dozens as he had thought of 
individuals, and be at once the owner and custodian of a whole colony, which would’ 
certainly give him a great importance in the eyes of fellow-passengers across the ocean. 

He set his traps wherever there was hope of catching sparrows; but he chiefly 
kept his eyes open for two splendid birds which he had followed in all their wander- 
ings for the two or three years before, arid which for many months had been the occu- 
pants of the finest hole in the spire of the Augustinian church. The boy could tell the 


16 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


cock among a thousand by its fearless daring and the black of its head with the deep 
. red color of the upper feathers of its wings. As to the hen, poor thing! he had so often 
stolen her young in the steeple that she was as familiar to him as to her own mate. 
Sparing the reader all the ingenuity which William displayed in his dark plot, it is 
enough to say that he succeeded ; gave them a place apart in the large cage by making 
a small compartment for them to dwell in; and when the boat finally dropped down 
the river with Murrogh O’ Murphy and his son, these two remarkable birds shared the 
captivity of many others of far inferior note. This desolate couple are the original 
Twit-Twats of whom we are writing the momentous history. 

New York harbor was reached without any loss of life; and as the O’ Murphys 
were at once going up the Hudson to Troy, the precious cage was transferred to 
the lower deck of the:steamer Vanderbilt, and arrived the next morning at its final 
destination. 


4 52 


CHAPTER III. 
A SORROWFUL CHRISTMAS DAY. 


HE citizens of Troy were then in the first flush of the sparrow-fever. 
Many had already obtained these highly-prized birds from New York, 
Albany, or Lansingburg; but such was the number calling for them 
that our friend William O’ Murphy found no trouble in disposing of the 
whole brood at a price which astonished even his father. The two pets, 
however, were the last to be sold, and William would not consent to part 
with them except on the certainty of their being well treated. Of this 
he felt no doubt when a great family living on Washington Park, in 

Troy, paid royally for the handsome couple. 

At first everything went on admirably. The Irish boy, who with his father soon 
found work in a foundry not far from the aristocratic square, often went to have a look 
at his pets, and he was highly pleased to remark that not only had they the liberty 
of the adjoining park, but they had been encouraged by the family to nestle in the 
intricate folds of an immense creeper covering the whole front of their house at the 
side of the square. 

How could it be supposed that under such circumstances the race would become 
extinct? In fact, they multiplied prodigiously in a very short space of time, and the 
two genuine, original birds brought over by the O’ Murphys became the patriarchs of 
as lively and numerous a tribe as ever were the celebrated Dal-Cassians of ancient 
Munster, so renowned in story and song. Two summers had sufficed for it. 

Unfortunately, as the Dal-Cassians long ago met their doom, the Twit-Twats, too, 
in the very flush of their prosperity seemed destined to a like sad fate. 

Already, a few months before, the lively interest long felt in New York for all 
sparrows had begun unaccountably to wane. Various reasons were assigned for it: the 
birds were very noisy, and Uppertendom could not peaceably slumber until eight or 
nine o’clock, whilst the fussy and numerous swarms were awake about the windows at 
four insummer. Besides, the nice little houses built for them, so bright and neat at 
first, were now growing dingy, and the birds not only did not keep ‘them clean, but 
some of them had even been seen positively defiling them. Moreover, they were often 
perceived, after the passage of horses and mules, darting down from the upper stories of 
17 


18 THE TWIT-T'WATS2> 


a splendid house and alighting in the middle of the street. Who could bear such vul- 
garity ¢ Worst of all, after such unaccountable expeditions they often flew back to the 
balconies of the house, and, if a window happened to be open and the lady was at her 
toilette, they carried bad manners so far as to twitter and chatter as if their voyage to 
the street and its object could be thus publicly avowed with such an air of triumph! 
Evidently the birds were vulgar. Hence people began to speak mysteriously of their 
origin, and the secret finally came out—they were Ivish ! 

The terrible news, originating in New York, did not fail to reach Troy in time, and 
the verdict of fashion in the metropolis was acquiesced in wherever it became known. 
War, therefore, was declared against sparrows in all aristocratic quarters, and if the 
whole brood could have been sent back to Europe, never to visit again the shores of 
fair America, the world of fashion would have rejoiced exceedingly ; but the race had 
taken possession of the land and was henceforth indestructible. 

The Twit-Twats, meanwhile, had to suffer. The splendid creeper-vine which had 
sheltered them for two full summers was mercilessly cut down, and the following 
Saturday afternoon, when William O’Murphy took his accustomed walk toward 
Washington Park, he was struck to the heart to see the former green bower of his dear 
sparrows now withered and lying about on the ground where it had bloomed a few 
days before. What had become of the birds? None could be seen in the trees even of 
the adjacent park ; he had therefore to enquire. As he knewseveral female servants of 
the neighborhood, he soon found out all the particulars. Two or three days previously 
the vine had been rooted out by order of the lady of the house, and the servants 
had been employed the whole afternoon scaring away the birds not only from the 
block of buildings to which the mansion belonged, but even from the large trees of the 
square. All that could be said was that the birds had taken their flight down Second 
Street and across the Poestenkill Creek : they must be in South Troy ! 

South Troy is divided from the city proper by the Poestenkill Creek, a raging tor- 
rent full of foam and shapeless débris in the early spring, but requiring dams and locks 
in summer and autumn to show its title to the name of a real river or creek. Former- 
ly there was between the city and the stream a large waste and marshy ground ; but in 
course of time improvements have been decreed by the Common Council of Troy, and 
the streets of the former village, called South Troy, are now part and parcel of the city 
itself. But no aristocratic family would consent to live in the district; the houses 
and cottages are homely and almost without exception occupied by people of the inde- 
structible Milesian race. The sparrows this time, left to their instinct, had well chosen 
their quarters, and would no doubt experience better treatment than from their former 
refined patrons. Only the question was rather puzzling to William O’ Murphy: What 
had become of the original Twit-Twats? They were only two among a number, and 
the whole flock had gone God knew where. He made up his mind to employ the: 
whole Sunday following—after having heard Mass, of course—in solving the problem. 

By the help of friendly inhabitants he learned that, after following Second Street 


The Twit-Twats in Washington Square, Troy 


20 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


across the creek, the whole brood had turned to the east and had found themselves in a 
very grove, so thickly had the trees been planted along Third and Fourth Streets. 
These trees luxuriate especially around a large church in the neighborhood called St. 
Joseph’s, and the sparrows might, perhaps, have recognized with delight something 
like their former haunts in New Ross. Finally, not to weary the reader with useless 
details, William O’ Murphy found, to his intense pleasure, that the whole colony had 
already settled not only around the church, but chiefly in a convent of good sisters 
separated from the church by a street. 

The cornices under the roof, and a multitude of nice little nooks surrounding a 
beautiful statue of St. Joseph, offered them a sure asylum from which they might 
expect never to be expelled again. And, to render William’s joy more complete, he 
saw the very patriarchal Twit-Twats he was looking for; they had taken the finest hole 
of the whole front of the house! There they were, to be sure. He could have recog- 
nized them among a thousand ; the hen, as well as the cock, in the midst of a numerous 
progeny. Here we must leave them for a while. Although they are not yet in the 
Lombardy poplar under our windows, they often, it is true, come to it, being separated 
from it by the distance only between two streets, and being attraeted by the lofty 
branches of the trees which tower over both church and rectory. 

In their pleasant little hole they were shaded from the western sun by a tall and 
handsome statue of St. Joseph holding in his arms the divine Child ; and the neigh- 
bors remarked, with grateful surprise, that they were never seen to rest familiarly 
on the holy image, which they appeared to treat with instinctive reverence, as though 
they had known the sacred reality of which it was the emblem. They had acted quite 
differently in the iron balcony of the fine house where they had spent the first two 
years of their residence in Troy, as every one could perceive when the destruction of 
the large creeper revealed the real state of things hidden at. first under green leaves and 
bright flowers. 

Thus the old feathered couple spent the end of the summer and the gr vee part of 
the autumn in joy. But the fierce blasts of November taught them the insecurity of 
their position. Torrents of rain poured down at times and were soon frozen by the 
northwest wind. The rain dashed against the west front of the house, and at every 
storm filled the humble nest of the poor sparrows with ice. What would it be by the 
end of December? . Moreover, occupying that side of the house towards the street, for 
which sparrows have always a great liking, the foolish birds never gave a thought to the 
interior of the convent, the well-kept garden behind, with its alleys and nooks where 
the nuns used to walk or sit, precisely on the side opposite to the public thoroughfare. 
Inside the convent grounds only could they receive the kindly help of the sisters in 
times of scarcity and starvation. The nuns knew nothing of what passed on the street, 
and consequently knew not the distress of the sparrows. Truly the birds’ position was 
lamentable, though they were not yet fully aware of it; when the hard winter would - 
come on they would find it out to their cost !. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. o1 


The church, looming up on the western side of the public highway, attracted them 
often, and thus removed them still farther from the interior of the friendly convent. 
They often flew over and beyond the church and chirruped in a row of Lombardy pop- 
lars planted along the western front of the rectory adjoining and to the north of it. 
This position would have suited them admirably ; but it was already occupied by seve- 
ral other families of sparrows, chiefly by a single pair dwelling in one of the cells 
of a double house nailed by my predecessor on the tree planted just in front of 
my windows. None of the Twit-'wats—male or female—dared to push their pre- 
tensions so far as to take possession of the spare room left empty in the little 
wooden house; for of the two cells one only was occupied. They were no doubt 
afraid of meeting with a fierce opposition from the previous occupants, who in 
fact did not appear to be of an obliging disposition. Their reserved manners, 
staid habits, cautious if not dark demeanor, and thrifty situation indicated their 
origin with certainty. From the first I perceived that they were somewhat different 
birds. 

Meanwhile the Twit-Twats paid me occasional visits, and after every storm that 
raged during the last of November and the beginning of the following month I usually 
remarked two poor forlorn sparrows squatting on the sill of one of my windows, press- 
ing their tails and backs against the glass, and looking wistfully at the little bird- 
house nailed to a branch of the tree at a few feet distance. So far they dared no more ; 
as soon as the storm would be fully abated they would disappear and fly back over the 
house and the church, no doubt returning to their desolate quarters in front of St. 


zi oseph’s Convent. 


But who were these strange sparrows for whom the Twit-Twats appeared to en- 
tertain feelings not only of distrust but apparently of dread? It is an interesting 
question, because of the important part they are to bear in this eventful history. 

Ihave here only conjectures to guide me ; yet they are strong conjectures, as the 
reader can judge. During the year I spent in Jersey City I had heard of a tradition 
prevalent among the people that European sparrows had been introduced into the 
State of New Jersey previous to their arrival in New York—how long previously no 
one could say. I have no doubt that by enquiring carefully into the traditions of New 
England reliable reports of the same nature would be obtained. The fact is that ever 
since the first planting of the English colonies in the Eastern States many men must 
have thought of introducing sparrows. Perhaps more than thirty years ago I myself 
tried to obtain a hundred pairs of French birds, in order to naturalize them at Ford- 
ham ; and I failed through the carelessness only of a steward employed on one of the 
French steamers, who made me fine promises which he never fulfilled. How long, 
therefore, this species of birds has existed in America cannot now be known. What 
is certain is that there are varieties among them, and consequently they must have 
come from different parts of the old continent. The same, therefore, is true of them 
as of the human races inhabiting the Atlantic seaboard, though not to the same ex- 


22 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


tent: they were a// strangers when they came; those who had arrived first may have 
grown to think themselves the real aborigines, and so to regard the later arrivals 
as intruders. The same, we know, has happened with men; among a certain number 
of the first colonists in the old thirteen States, for instance. They now very proudly 
call themselves natives. 

However this may be, it is sure that the brood of sparrows which thrived under my 
windows before the arrival of the Twit-Twats presented the differences which I have 
’ mentioned ; and it was clear that a conflict must ensue. 

The pair residing in the little house must first have our attention. They had 
come just a year before the Twit-Twats appeared; and although they were evi- 
dently old birds—at least eight years old—still in the few summer months that elaps- — 
ed before the Irish swarm’s arrival they had, to the knowledge of my predecessor, 
hatched successfully and brought up at least three broods. All that young progeny 
was, at the time of my coming, living about the roof of our house or in the numerous 
trees which shed a grateful shade around, the old couple living all alone in one of the 
cells of the bird-cottage they had first occupied. 

Impossible to say if it be the effect of prejudice, but I have always imagined that 
there was a great difference between them and all the Irish sparrows I have since be- 
come acquainted with. The venerable pair residing near my windows were certainly 
more sedate than any birds I have ever known from the Green Isle; and if their nu- 
merous offspring established around were as noisy and petulant as any Irish creatures, 
they seemed, to me at least, of so ferocious and overbearing a character as I have never 
found in their Irish congeners. At least I fancied so, and the reader will perhaps 
agree that the sequel of the story mournfully confirmed my judgment. 

The month of December was already half gone when the weather, which had so 
far been at times squally, yet in general not over-harsh, suddenly became more threat- 
ening, and gave signs that we should have one of those extensive northwest storms 
which appear occasionally to come in a direct line from the very mouth of the Macken- 
zie River, or rather from Behring Strait. 

It was a succession of fierce tempests rather which began toward the middle of 
December, and were to culminate with the eventful Christmas festival of 187-- The 
eround, already covered with snow, received a new supply almost every day. Fancy 
how hard it must soon have become for the poor Twit-Twats to keep alive in the cold 
and to find enough to eat. Meanwhile their enemies, the natives, did not fare much 
better ; and this was not calculated to soften their obstreperous temper. I must say, 
however, that the two patriarchs, both hen and cock, continued to show their quiet and 
demure ways in the midst of the turbulent world around. They often came out of their 
cell and flew about in quest of food, and I confess I never did understand how they 
could succeed in finding enough to live. No naturalist has yet fully explained how so 
many sparrows can escape starvation during our long winters. The help they receive 
from people who throw crumbs before their doors or on the sills ef their windows does 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 93 


not clear up the problem, for this very uncertain help cannot reach one-tenth of the 
birds. We prefer to think it is Providence. And here we are altogether serious, and 
must be so, since it is our divine Lord Himself who says that our Father in heaven 
feeds even the birds of the air. ‘‘ Are not you of much more value than they ?”’ 

For my part I was delighted not only with the solution of such a mystery in the 
actual circumstances, but also with the peaceful behavior of the venerable native birds, 
to whom we will give that name for want of a better one. It may have been the result 
of age—eight years is a long period for sparrows—but it was also, very likely at 
least, the effect of an excellent natural disposition. They never engaged in fight, and 
showed the greatest good-nature not only for their rude offspring but even for the 
newly-arrived strangers, if they met any. 

But this did not much assist the Twit-Twats, who, besides suffering from hunger, 
had no other place of refuge than the dismal hole exposed every day to the buffetings 
of the storm. How they escaped perishing has always been to me a matter of wonder. 
Birds that are so diminutive, whose organs must be so delicate and are almost micro- 
scopic, one would suppose would be incapable of resisting a single blast of winter ; still, 
week after week they were night and day in the midst of perils without number. 

Imagine the disconsolate pair fluttering from the top of the convent to the roof 
of the church, and finally trying to rest their wearied limbs on some window-sill of 
the parsonage, already covered with several inches of hard-pressed snow. How fiercely 
the storm used to rage on those roofs! With what madness it beat against chimneys 
and fines! Bricks even and slates were loosened and driven through the air, the fury 
of the wind appearing to be tenfold greater on the tops of buildings than in the 
desolate streets below. I remember on one occasion seeing a pair of feeble sparrows 
taken violently in their miserable flight by a sudden gust of the fierce wind, and flung, 
half-dead, against the walls of a neighboring edifice. The stranger-birds were all this 
time to the east of our house, and it must be certain that their position on the roof of 
the convent was indeed deplorable, though I could not see their hole from my window. 

. Meanwhile Christmas day was near, and preparations were everywhere going on 
among men for its worthy celebration. It is, no doubt, owing to a benevolent design of 
Providence that for Christians of the northern hemisphere—the immense majority of 
the Church’s children—it falls in the midst of winter. That rude season is to some 
extent deprived of its harshness by the sweet and tender mysteries which always 
surround the Saviour’s cradle. The thought that the Infant laid in a manger is the 
Eternal Word, who ‘“‘in the beginning was with God and was God”’ ; that, owing to 
His infinite love and compassion for man, ‘‘ He was made flesh and dwelt among us,”’ is 
enough to soften our heart and fill it with the sweetest emotions. Are not our eyes 
inclined to moisten when we behold Him, in the arms of His Mother, ‘‘ weeping for 
our sins, not for His own sorrows’’? His power created the universe, and He could in 
a moment annihilate His enemies; but He has deliberately deprived Himself of His 
might, and the tiny hands which He has assumed could not strike a blow. The 
guiltiest sinner need not fear Him, can approach Him with confidence, and lay down at 


: 


~ 


4 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


His feet the heavy burden of his iniquity. Although His tongue cannot yet speak, He 
seems already to utter the divine words which later came from His lips: ‘‘ Come to me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”’ 

While the wind howls outside that grotto in Bethlehem, and the winter cold freezes 
those who prefer to remain without and reject the boon of a safe asylum, inside, around 
Mary and her Babe, the blast cannot be felt ; for the Prince of Peace is there, and the 
atmosphere is tranquil wherever he condescends to lie. Hasten, therefore, ye poor and 
lowly shepherds. To you first the message has been brought by angels, and kings, 
too, will come, but only after you. 

It is thus to the heart of the sinner and of the suffering poor that the Christmas 
festival speaks most eloquently. There is joy in the lowliest house, because it is 
precisely the most fit reproduction of the first dwelling of Christ on earth. Those of 
you, humble Christians, who are deprived, even on that day, of the commonest bless- 
ings of life, consider that your Master and Lord, when His Mother was refused admit- 
tance into a common inn and obliged to take refuge in an abandoned stable, was not 
better off than you are. If you suffer from cold, hunger, poverty, remember that this 
also was the grievous lot preordained by Almighty God for His Son. Rejoice, there- 
fore, because you resemble Him most. You are His dear friends, since He treats you 
like Himself. Sharing now in His privations, you may share one day in His endless 
happiness in glory. 

These high considerations, brought on by the narrative of a pair of disconsolate 
sparrows, may appear far-fetched to the critics. But the reader is reminded of the 
ultimate purpose of this little book, which is to look at human beings under the veil of 
a myth confined in appearance to diminutive birds. Our Lord Himself, in developing 
His heavenly doctrine before men, has placed under their eyes the consideration of the 
‘*pirds of the air,’’ adding only at the end, ‘‘ Are not you of much more value than 
they ?”? We shall not pretend to say that the Twit-Twats had any knowledge of 
Christmas, or could profit in their sufferings, during that fearful winter, by the con- 
sideration of divine mysteries intended for the_salvation of man only. But for all that 
there are harmonies between the animal creation and the far higher sphere of man, as 
will soon appear with the help of authorities not lower than the words of the Saviour 
Himself and of St. Paul. Here it must suffice to say that the culmination of all the 
Twit-Twats’ troubles, and also their happy termination, happened just on Christmas 
day of 187-, and to this we return. j 


The tempest on that morning was more dreadful than it had been at any time dur- 
ing the fortnight. I was too busy in the church to pay any attention to the sparrows, 
and cannot say anything of their vicissitudes from ‘‘early morn’? till after dinner. 
The first moment I could go to my room was at two o’clock p.m., and I had just half an 
hour to rest. The best rest for me was directly to look out for my little friends ; and 
for a few minutes I was disappointed. Soon, however, I heard something like their 
usual twitter, but much more feeble than it had ever before seemed to me. They were 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 25 


evidently nearly exhausted by their long struggle against the elements. Their poor 
wings could scarcely support them in the air, exactly like those of young birds who 
venture for the first time out of their nest. They arrived, panting and breathless, and 
alighted in the most forlorn condition at the window of my room nearest to the much- 
coveted cottage of the old native pair. As it was now a question of life and death for 
them, they were evidently determined to occupy the empty room which they had al- 
ready so often examined, and their mind was made up not to return to their former 
quarters. 

Their little feet were resting on the snow which covered the sill. Their tails were 
pressed against the very glass, which enabled me to see them through the snow that 
formed a film on the panes ; their heads were turned upwards, and they looked intent- 
ly on the cottage in the poplar-tree, which certainly was their last resource in this their 
fatal day. Of the two rooms of the cottage, one, as was said before, was occupied by a 
pair of old birds ; the other remained empty. The progeny of the ancient couple occu- 
pied all the holes and corners under the roof of the house; but none of them had, it 
seems, thought of settling in the apartment next to the patriarchs of the tribe. The 
position of the unfortunate strangers has been more than sufficiently described ; we 
must see how stood the antagonistic element. 

The Twit-Twats certainly regarded all the birds around as their enemies. They 
had been so often chased away by the colony settled at the top of the house that, al- 
though the birds in the cottage never flew at them, they could not but imagine they 
were of one mind with their turbulent offspring. At this precise moment of our story 
the old native cock, in spite of the tempest, was more than half-way out of his hole 
and looking down on the strangers—without moving, without showing any sign of 
anger. But from my room I could hear, although very indistinctly, the flutterings of 
many birds on the roof above, excited evidently by the presence of their hated visitors. 
A short moment was to decide the fate of the Twit-Twats, and this moment came 
sooner than I expected. While I was still looking at them on the window-sill they 
both rose suddenly and swiftly through the tempestuous air, and rested at once near 
the coveted entrance to the only refuge left them. The old native patriarch did not 
move ; but the stirring of several pairs of wings was heard by me, and two birds from 
above were instantly seen coming down, intent evidently on fight. The Twit-Twats 
were certainly preparing to receive them, fully determined to stand their ground and 
struggle for life even at the risk of death. I thus expected an encounter, when, to my 
great and pleasant surprise, the patriarch of the hostile tribe came quite out of his 
recess, not to attack the strangers, but to bid his own progeny stand off. Strange to 
relate, by a single look at them he drove them away ; they evidently felt his power and 
withdrew to their 6wn uncontested places of refuge. The Twit-Twats, immediately 
aware that they had found a friend, entered the empty part of the cottage with a look 
of perfect security. They were saved, and had gained possession, in a manner most un- 
expected, of comfortable quarters for the winter, where we must leave them for a while. 


CEEAPT ER LV: 


A BRIEF GLANCE AT THE HARMONIES OF CREATION. 


HO has not, occasionally in his life, reflected on the intimate relations 
which an All-wise and All-powerful Creator has established between the 
various parts of His immense work? These relations can very appro- 
priately be called harmonies, as if a grand hymn to the Almighty 
Author of all things resulted from the universal combination of all 
things. Unity and variety form the two keys on which alone the great 
and noble composition rests—unity everywhere felt, variety everywhere 
seen. But the immensity of this subject cannot be embraced in the 

humble scope naturally intended in these pages. It is far preferable to consider one 

point only, and leave all others aside. This point is the close analogy existing between 
human beings and the inferior creatures comprised in the animal kingdom. A most re- 
markable correlation is directly apparent in their physical organization, and becomes 
the foundation on which all the systems of natural history are laid. But we discard 
this branch even of the subject, and confine ourselves to what we think is a superior 
point of view—namely, to what looks very much like a social, moral, and pedagogical 
relation between both. This forms, indeed, a harmony of its own kind, sué generis, 
which the history of the Twit-Twats directly presents to the mind of the reader. To be 


sure, the moral point of view is deficient, since man is the only being on earth suscepti- 
ble of it; and by this characteristic alone he constitutes an order of his own in nature. 
The inferior animals are excluded from the moral order. This being well understood, it 
cannot be denied that animals invariably go so far as to present us the spectacle of a 
strict observance of law; and the observance of law is a great part of true morality. 
Hence Holy Scripture refers us often to the remarkable conduct of many inferior beings 
as an inducement for us to keep God’s commandments: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, and 
consider her ways, and learn wisdom” (Prov. vi. 6); ‘‘The bee is small among flying 
things, but her fruit hath the chiefest sweetness” (Ecclus. xi. 3). If the ant is the 
pattern of industry, and the bee of lavish generosity, is not the horse the type of cour- 
age (Job xxxix. 25)? is not the behemoth that of strength, and the leviathan that of 
intrepidity ? 

It would be easy to find in the Old Testament passages where all the human vir- 

26 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 27 


tues are inculcated by the example of mere animals. But in the New our blessed Lord 
has gone still further, and has sometimes found in birds and plants inducements for 
us to practise the highest Christian virtues. ‘‘ Behold the birds of the air, for they 
neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth 
them. . . . Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they labor not, neither do 
they spin. . . . Be not solicitous, therefore. . . . After all these things do the heathen 
seek; but your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things”? (Matt. vi. 
passim). : 

If from morality we pass on to sociability, the harmony established by God Him- 
self between human beings and inferior creatures will appear still much closer and 
more perfect ; for if animals are altogether deprived of true morality, many of them 
enjoy sociability to a great extent. There is no need here of quoting examples—the 
simplest books of natural history are full of them; and it is particularly in this line 
that we shall find in our way instances of a remarkable harmony between sparrows and 
men. 

The same may be said of the pedagogical characteristics which Holy Scripture 
has particularly in view whenever it touches on the subject. The matter, however, 
considered in its universality, and as embracing all the branches of the subject, even 
those which we discard, has been admirably condensed by St. Paul in his Epistle to 
the Romans, where he says (i. 20): ‘‘ The invisible things of God, from the creation of 
the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that He made.” If even 
the divine attributes are manifested in visible creation, much more the moral and 
social peculiarities of man must be typified in inferior beings. Man embodies them in 
himself, because he is the centre of the material universe, or rather its abridgment, 
and thus truly deserves the name of microcosm, or epitome of creation. 

In this little book the intention cannot be to go deeply into this subject, and the 
reader must expect a gleaning only here and there of some correspondences or con- 
gruities existing between a class of birds perfectly familiar to us—the sparrows—and a 
class of men numerous in this country, and to whom it is good occasionally to draw 
public attention—namely, European immigrants of all nationalities, but by religion 
Catholics. The Twit-Twats become thus the shadow of a reality, and all there is to 
do at the end of this chapter is to prepare the way for their action by briefly showing 
how human immigration in North America was exactly typified by the various fortunes 


of the sparrow family. 


The ‘‘armies of caterpillars,’ the original occasion of the coming of the birds, 
may be said to have been, with respect to men, of two distinct and remarkable kinds. 
First, in the designs of divine Providence, as far as they can be read, the swarms of 
Catholics arriving from Europe were kindly intended for the gradual reduction and 
final extinction of the ‘‘armies of sects’? which, under the pretence of religion, were 
in fact destroying the moral and eternal happiness of the people. No surer way 
could be found of planting the Catholic tree on the North American continent than 


98 THE TWIT-TWATS, 


by bringing to it ‘‘armies’’ of sturdy immigrants with the cross in their hands and 
the true religion of Christ in their hearts. 

But as many people outside of the Church would not readily accept the truth of 
this bright harmony, the ugly ‘‘caterpillars”’ were evidently types of a second though 
inferior kind, with which harmony no one, even if not a Catholic, can in the least find 
fault. 

The American people, when colonizing this continent, found themselves face to face 
with two immense obstacles which they alone, with all their astounding energy, could 
scarcely have surmounted: first, an immense territory as wild as when created, and 
requiring millions of men to subdue and beautify ; and, secondly, an adverse Eng- 
lish nation from which war at last had separated them for ever. But even when 
liberated from the direct control of England they were still left at its mercy by the 
manufactured goods of every kind they were forced to receive from it. What ‘ army- 
worm”? (such is the name, we think, given in the West to the destructive battalions of 
caterpillars which often devastate the richest fields) could ever be more terrific and 
appalling than those two barriers to the progress of a great nation—the uncouth form 
of the wilderness, the wild vegetation of unprofitable forests and woods eating up the 
fertility of the soil for no use whatever to mankind ; and the voracious rapacity of 
foreign capitalists and ‘manufacturers, coming with their high-priced products and 
saying with a sneer: ‘‘Take or die’? Where could a remedy be found? The immi- 
grants became for the salvation of a great people what a number of imported little 
birds turned out to be for the gratification of annoyed and vexed citizens. 

The immigrants were first to subdue nature and to render comfortable the dwell- 
ing-place of future millions; to connect cities with cities by roads and canals; to 
render easy the navigation of large rivers hitherto obstructed by sand-bars or snags ; 
to level almost inaccessible mountains, and drain swampy and boggy valleys; to turn 
into smiling fields gloomy and interminable forests ; to raise, all over the surface of an 
immense territory, private and public structures, at first of an humble but comfortable 
character, later on of a splendid and varied type, reproducing in the New World the 
styles of architecture of all times and all countries; to change, in fact, for ever the 
aspect of a great continent, and replace the few rude traces of roaming and barbarous 
tribes by the lasting monuments of European civilization. 

The second object of that great material mission was not inferior to the first. It was 
to render the new people settled in this country independent of the monopolizing 
manufacturers of Europe, chiefly of England, by the erection of factories of every 
kind, from those of chemical matches to those of mammoth boilers and ironclad moni- 
tors. To the inventive genius of the Yankee was to be left the direction of these 
countless establishments ; to the newly-arrived Europeans was entrusted the execution 
of the plan and the material part of the business. What could the few colonists have 
done, scattered as they were far and wide over such an immense territory, for the 
realization of so many vast schemes, had it not been for the armies of starving people 


every day leaving the shores of Ireland, Germany, England, and other Kuropean coun- 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 99 


tries? Let any candid inquirer travel over this new continent and inquire what has 
been the part everywhere taken by the so-called foreigners in those gigantic enter- 
prises, and he will find that without them the progress to be expected would have 
been futile and impracticable. 

No one, therefore, need be surprised that at first and for a long time these for- 
eigners were as welcome in North America as were subsequently the sparrows when 
first introduced into the various Atlantic cities. America saw the importance of the 
muscular help coming to her assistance, and willingly offered to that multitude of new- 
comers conditions which it would have been perfectly useless for them to expect in 
their own country. Hence they flocked hither in immense numbers. 

What rendered this mutual good feeling more natural was the fact that the popu- 
lation of the United States was composed, from the first, of men of all countries and 
races. They could not think, therefore, of excluding any nationality whatever, espe- 
cially when there were so many weighty reasons for admitting all with open arms. 

It was only later on that an opposition at first began to manifest itself, silently, it 
is true, but which gradually swelled to proportions of unexpected magnitude, first in 
the Native-American party of 1843, and afterward in the Know-nothing organization of 
1856. And, strange to say, the motives of that opposition partook a great deal of the 
nature of the war declared against the inoffensive birds so warmly admitted at first to 
the privacy of American families. The birds were noisy, so were the immigrants; the 
birds were vulgar, so the new-comers undoubtedly were; the birds multiplied too fast, 
so the foreigners threatened to do; the birds showed themselves too much at home, 
and interfered too much with the staid, quiet habits of Yankeedom, so the foreigners 
were accused of doing; the birds, though strangers to the country, were already driv- 
ing away the native robins and chippies, who could not build their nests in the neigh- 
borhood of the sparrows. All such annoyances and irritating grievances were likewise 
attributed to the presence of the so-called foreigners—namely, the immigrants from 
Europe—so that no one can refuse to admit that the Twit-Twats were a type and the 
foreigners a sad reality. ' 

But the chief cause of the violent hatred of Nativists and Know-nothings for every- 
body not born on these shores was their religion, for a great part of these foreigners 
were Catholics. What a terrible verdict against the mother Church was then rendered 
by many patriotic Americans! Ignorance, despotism, hatred of civilization, etc., were 
reproached to the Bride of Christ, and in the eyes of those who thus spoke and wrote 
it amounted to a perfect demonstration. So likewise it has been seen that the main 
reason which turned the tide of popular feeling against the poor sparrows was the 
unexpected discovery that most of them came from the ruins of Catholic monasteries. 
The Twit-Twats in particular had been brought from the steeple of a Catholic church in 
Treland, and not, as people at first fondly imagined, from the factories of Birmingham 
or Manchester, or from the prim rectories of Essex and Sussex, in Protestant England. 

This general statement of well-known facts was necessary for the thorough under- 
standing of what is to follow. 


eK Se by, 
i i FOE. 


j TUE in 
Y A hh Mh 


Mi | 
Wt if Pa | SS = St q a it 


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WS a kOsSs 


Harmonies of Creation between Men and Birds. 


CHAPTER V. 


A DESCRIPTION OF SOME STRANGE NATURAL HABITS OF THE TWIT-TWATS CONSIDERED 
: AS TYPES OF HUMAN BEINGS. 


| OW that the old native pair, together with the ancient Twit-Twat couple, 

| are lodged in the little wooden house in one of the Lombardy poplars 

near my windows, each of them occupying its cell in close contiguity, I 
can study their habits to the best advantage. It is easy for me to see 
them. going in or coming out, hopping on the little platform in front of 
their cottage, interchanging courtesies or the reverse, flying about on 
the trees around, or down on the ground and in the street, and show- 

ing their feelings—shall I say their thoughts ?—by what they do or 

avoid doing. The numerous progeny of the native patriarchs is strongly established 
on the top of the rectory or in other poplar-trees which I myself had long before 
planted in front of the house. The Twit-Twats’ numerous offspring live still in the 

Facade of St. Joseph’s Convent, and their usual haunts cannot be seen from my win- 
dows, as they are situated precisely east of Fourth Street, back of the rectory ; but 
they often come to visit me, and, as was previously seen, their demeanor is quite diffe- 
rent from that of the native birds. This little picture must remain in the mind of the 
reader for the understanding of what is immediately to follow. 

From the elevated position I occupied in this small world I could observe every- 
thing to perfection, and had no need of consulting other people, reading books of natu- 
ral history, or having recourse to dusty and ancient temps describing sparrows and 
robins. 

I had, however, one excess to avoid—I mean being carried away by my imagina- 
tion so far as to make of my little friends so many real men and women. This is what 
Lafontaine has done in his #adles. Read even the first, ‘‘ La Cigale et la Fourmi” ; 
how they talk! how they address and answer each other! You at once imagine two 
human inhabitants of this mundane sphere, one of them an improvident spendthrift, 
the other a prudent husbandman attentive to his larder and provisions. Still, every- 
body reads Lafontaine and finds him charming. I certainly can never hope to have as 
many readers; though if I were fond enough of vainglory I might try my best to 


imitate him in every respect. But I have a conscience and cannot condescend to lie 
31 


32 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


too outrageously. I must even say frankly to those who will do me the favor of read- 
ing this little book that, if whatever I describe as having been seen by me is true to the 
letter, if the strange doings of either the strangers or the natives have happened 
exactly as I describe them, the same cannot be said altogether of the inner motives 
which I sometimes assign to those exterior actions. I may have been mistaken in this, 
for it is difficult to read the thoughts of sparrows, even supposing sparrows to have 
thoughts. Thus everybody is warned beforehand, and we can resume the thread of 
our story. 


The old Twit-Twats were probably so much fatigued when they took possession of 
their new quarters that during the whole afternoon and evening of that Christmas day 
they did not come out of their cell; they spent the time inside on a wretched straw 
bed, certainly, since they had not had time to bring on new hay, and the cell had not 
been occupied for several years before. But at least they remained quiet, though with 
an empty craw and stomach. The obstreperous native progeny did not dare to attack 
them so soon, and the venerable native patriarchs did not think it was becoming to dis- 
turb them in the sad interior of their dwelling. 

Thus this first Christmas holiday was cheerless enough for the poor birds, and they 
had no idea whatever of the happy, nay, brilliant, one which Providence had in store 
for them a twelvemonth hence. 

When, after an early breakfast on the morning of St. Stephen’s day, I looked out 
of my window, old Mr. T'wit-Twat was just coming out of his hole for the first time, 
and he was alone! Mrs. Twit-Twat, to my great regret, did not appear. Was she 
dead? Itisa great pity that man has not yet found a means of entering into com- 
munication with animals, not by articulate speech, since they are incapable of it, but at 
least by sure signs on which people could rely. The pretended interchange of com phi- 
ments between the master and his dog, the rider and his horse, etc., is only a sham, as 
many grave philosophers have proved, though Lafontaine is emphatically of another 
opinion. 

So that I could not learn from old Mr, Twit-Twat what had happened to his con- 
sort in her place of refuge ; and it would have been cruel to plant a ladder against the 
tree for the purpose of ascertaining the truth. I preferred to wait patiently for further 
developments. 

Soon Mr. Twit-Twat became very active. As he must have been really hungry, his 
first concern was to fill his stomach ; and, in spite of the snow on the ground, he did it 
without difficulty, for I had already the evening before charitably spread a great quan- 
tity of crumbs at the foot of his tree. But after he had fully attended to himself I was 
ereatly surprised to see him go back to his cell, remain a few moments inside, come out 
again, and repeat the same operation again and again during a part of the forenoon. 
I was, therefore, sure of one thing—that Mrs. Twit-Twat was not dead ; for, on the con- 
trary supposition, the old gentleman would not have acted as he did. It is known that 


‘S}EM[-}IM] Yi JO stiqey o1jsoW0g 


Z| 
fall! 


Ay! 
|i 


‘a 


IN ath 


B 
f 


zi Lom 


Scilly 


Ky 


ut 


m mit 1 
<a “TT 


| 
th 
SND 


34 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


a hole in a wall occupied by the dead body of a bird will never be visited by another. - 
Do birds respect the sacredness of the tomb? We cannot judge of their feelings, but it 
is hard to explain it otherwise, unless it comes from their cowardice at the image of 
grim death. 

In his trips up and down he acted exactly as birds do in summer when the female 
is hatching. Was he bringing her food? I could not exactly answer this question, for I 
am somewhat near-sighted and was unable to see whether he brought anything or not. 

And during that forenoon what were the native colony doing all around? Several 
of the birds settled on the top of the church attempted again to pounce upon our 
friend; but he showed fight, and, being now well fed, proved himself a still vigorous 
fellow in spite of his previous privations. The feeling of animosity on the part of the 
native party was not extinct—far from it. But old Mr. Twit-Twat had a beak and 
claws, and could defend himself. Besides this, the old patriarch near him continued 
friendly ; and although he did not so actively protect him as he had done the day be- 
fore—knowing, I suppose, that our friend was plucky enough to take care of himself 
—still it was a check to his numerous progeny to show, as he did, that he willingly al- 
lowed free quarters to his neighbor. These were the various circumstances which I 
witnessed on the morning of St. Stephen’s day; and I confess that I became very 
much interested in that study. Asif the tones of a sweet harmony had delighted my 
ears, I was almost riveted to the place, and would, perhaps, have forgotten my dinner 
had not the voice of duty called me away. 

In the afternoon, as soon as free, I was again at my post; and, indeed, the spec- 
tacle that offered itself to me, more puzzling still than that of the forenoon, became 
more attractive also—in fact, almost fascinating. It was furnished this time by the old 
female native bird, who had taken no part in the Twit-Twats’ defence the day before. 

She was always sedate and gentle, but on that afternoon of St. Stephen’s day ap- 
peared more so than usual, and I remarked with a great deal of astonishment that, 
after fluttering around a little, she finally entered the room of our friends, and went, 
no doubt, to visit the poor female stranger. Old Twit-Twat was near at the time, and 
appeared at first unwilling to allow her such a liberty, which everybody knows is not 
at allin their usual manners. He was on the point of driving her off even, when he saw 
her venerable mate perched on the top of the cottage, evidently surprised that his 
former services to the Twit-Twats should be repaid by ingratitude, and ready to call 
back our friend to his senses by, I suppose, a good knock-down. On reflection, there- 
‘ore, old Twit-Twat became wiser and more sociable, and allowed Mrs. Native to have 
her free entrées to his sanctum. She used the permission, to my knowledge, quite fre- 
quently. What she did within cannot be said, nor even imagined ; but, after all I have 
seen of the doings of animals, I should not be in the least surprised if she was actually 
comforting and feeding the sick bird. Long ago I have imagined that the well-known 
lines of Shakspere could be very well applied to many strange antics of birds, and even 
snakes : 


THE TWIT-TWATS 35 


“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 


Instinct in animals is essentially different from moral feeling in man; and I beg 
the reader to believe that I do not share in the infatuation of the modern evolutionists, 
who confound one with the other. But it can be said without fear of heterodoxy 
that instinct in animals often supplies the place of what is moral feeling in man. Who 
has ever looked at two doves petting one another, and has not immediately conceived 
that their attachment, produced by nothing higher than instinct, is the exact reproduc- 
tion of the far holier feeling of love in man? . Who has seen a mother-bird feeding her 
young without imagining that he has under his eyes an example offered by God Him- 
self to the mother of a human family who owes herself entirely to her children? Nay, 
more, in the words of Moses (Deut. xxxii. 11), the Almighty compares His love for 
Israel to that of ‘‘the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, spread- 
ing her wings, taking them up, and carrying them on her shoulders.”’ 

And it is not family instinct only which is remarkable in animals. We have often 
read of the deep attachment of a dog for his master, of an elephant for his keeper, of 
a lioness for her saviour, etc.—an attachment carried occasionally as far as death itself. 
Can we not suppose that a sparrow may feel deeply the misfortunes of a fellow-bird ? 
What motive could have led Mrs. Native to enter into the room of Mrs. Twit-Twat, ex- 
cept it were to afford consolation? This set me thinking the whole afternoon and a 
good part of the following night. 


Meanwhile, although saved from destruction, the Twit-Twats were far from com- 
fortable in their new quarters, and this time they shared their troubles with other 
sparrows. There were a great number of them hopping and flying and twittering 
about the roof of the church and the front of the convent and the rectory. ‘The sisters 
saw very few of them in their garden, and these occasionally received some crumbs— 
enough for them. But the others had mainly to depend upon what remained of the 
sereenings—the word may not be correct, but it is so expressive here—thrown twice a 
day to fifteen or twenty fowls belonging to the parsonage. Everything else which 
could fill the stomach of sparrows was buried under a foot and a half of snow; and I 
have never observed them to feed on the buds of trees, as other birds are said to do. 
Hence I am sure that they had often to go to sleep at night with a more than half 
empty stomach. They say that fasting is not very painful in warm countries; but 
wherever the cold is intense all acknowledge that starving is a very unpleasant sensa- 
tion. At this time the sensation must have been familiar to the birds. 

There was, moreover, a great hardship to which I have often seen the poor Twit- 
Twats exposed. The morning after their first night in the cottage the old bird found 
the way of egress somewhat barred by snow ; but as it was very soft, he passed through 

it as “‘through a mist.’”? The same was repeated on several occasions. But much 
oftener the furious wind had so compressed and hardened the snow that the bird had to 


aN 


Ls — 
tes? s : 
et ae , - 
Re ON re. s ~ 


36 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


use his beak and claws for hours together to open a hole large enough to get through 
into his cottage. I was frequently a witness to this when a storm during the day had 
blocked up the entrance. Poor Twit-Twat, coming back late in the afternoon to retire 
for the night, had to knock and knock with his little beak, and scratch and scratch 
with his little claws, to open a passage. He never failed to apply his mechanical 
powers in the right place, and when he had dug through the hard snow for two or three 
inches he was sure at last to find the blessed passage open. He was more cunning in 
that respect than many blundering carpenters, who, after spending a good deal of time 
cutting a hole in the outside of a frame building, find at last that their operation has been 
carried on a foot or so to the right or left of the required place, and have to begin again. 
The Twit-Twats never had such a disheartening mishap ; their previous calculations 
were always right, and the little passage they dug in the snow, although never larger 
than the hole in the cottage, always corresponded exactly with it, as if they had used 
rule, and compass, and all that sort of thing.* But in spite of this inerrancy of caleu- 
lation, what an amount of trouble it gave the poor birds to be there, half fed, exposed 
to the cold wind after a day of frequent disappointments, hammering and hammering 
for at least an hour and a half—I have measured the time, watch in hand, on two occa- 
sions at least—and after all this labor to find inside a half-handful of straw, and even 
this powdered with the snow that had been blown through the too visible chinks in the 
cottage ! 

Days went on, however, and finally on a beautiful January morning two birds 
came out together, and at last the long-lost female Twit-Twat appeared, as active and 
frisky as ever. The labor would henceforth be done doubly as quick, and happiness 
would in due time come back again to the desolate couple. 


Before this chapter is closed a word of explanation is required to meet a probable 
objection. The reader might say, ‘‘ Your analogy, Mr. Author, is already wrong. 
You wish to prove the opposition of the Native party to Catholic immigrants, and some 
of your native birds are, at the very start, the best friends of the strangers. Why is 
this thus? as Artemus Ward used to say.” 

My answer will prove, I hope, satisfactory. It has been said that all Americans 
were at first strangers from Europe. None of them are really natives of the soil by 
race. Those, however, whose ancestors have for a long time resided in this country— 
it goes sometimes to a couple of centuries—may very well be called natives, as is done 
in this story. Everybody knows that there are two kinds of such citizens. Some— 
many, in my opinion—were not opposed to the arrival of new immigrants; nay, I have 
personally known a number of them who were constantly their best friends and helpers. 
But there were others who were not so liberal-minded. They were known in this coun- 


* The reader will please believe that all the details I give of the doings of the birds anywhere in these pages have actually 
fallen under my observation, and that I invent nothing. It is ondy when I assign motives to the birds, and suppose them acting in- 
telligently, that I use the privilege of a philosophical historian; then the reader may believe or not, as he chooses. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 37 


try as the Native party, or rather faction. The two sorts cannot be put in the same 
category. Our story, therefore, is perfectly consistent. 

Tt has been even remarked that many members of the Native American or Know- 
nothing party were themselves only lately arrived on this continent; and these, pre- 
tending to be natives, showed themselves the most fanatical opponents of more honest 
strangers and aliens. 


CHAP TERA 


THE BEGINNING OF A FIERCE BATTLE BETWEEN TWO HOSTILE TRIBES OF 
BIRDS. = 


>| ANUARY was near its end; according to the almanac, the days were 
growing longer in the afternoon, though very little longer, if at all, in 
the morning—an anomaly in nature. The old Twit-Twat couple, since 
first coming out together, were fast recovering from their previous weak- 
ness, and appeared to enjoy the good fare daily offered them in the barn- 
yard. The native patriarchs, it must be said, showed little change, and 
their sedateness was, if anything, suddenly increased by the surprising 
absence of most of their progeny. There were now few, indeed, of these 
turbulent birds to annoy the old pair, or to oblige their patriarch to prove 
his authority over them. The same was nearly the case with the young 
Twit-Twats, most of whom had disappeared from the church-roof, and particularly 
from the row of Lombardy poplars, which now loomed up in their solitary grandeur. 
What could be the cause of it? This question was puzzling to my reasoning facul- 
ties, and I did not know how to find the answer to it. Were we to be deprived of our 
agreeable company for any length of time, and perhaps for ever? The answer came to 
me the next time I went to the convent. It was a part of my Office to visit the nuns 
once a week, and the first day I entered I could not account for the number of birds I 
saw in their garden and all around about. The reader remembers, perhaps, that few had 
ventured thither previously. Many of the turbulent natives, it is true, had settled since 
Christmas day in the front of the convent, after driving away some Twit-Twats who had 
previously lived there—a circumstance I had forgotten to mention. This new move 
was probably in retaliation for the admittance of the Twit-Twat patriarchs into the 
midst of their former colony—nay, into the very cottage of their chief. But if they 
were thus numerous in the front of the house, it was only recently that it had become 
so. Hitherto a few natives used to fly over the convent building and alight in the in- 
terior of the garden, so that the good sisters could easily feed the forlorn birds when- 
ever they ventured into their grounds. But now they were coming in great troops, 
and very noisy they were. When I asked the reverend mother the cause, she did not 
know. Quite lately, she said, swarms of them had come from the other side of Fourth 
38 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 39 


Street, and by their screams they disturbed the whole community. The nuns had 
welcomed the few stragglers that first arrived. Now they took good care not to feed 
this multitude. All they wished was that the troublesome visitors should go away 
and leave them in peace and quiet, as they had been before. That was the substance 
of the reverend mother’s explanation. 

It was puzzling indeed, and in order to study the problem, which interested me a 
great deal, I made up my mind to remain in the convent after finishing my business 
with the nuns. The Sisters of St. Joseph are not cloistered, and there was no rule to 
prevent me from entering their house, their garden and all its nooks and corners, and 
the most hidden recesses of a shanty or two which had remained there ever since they 
purchased the property. 

-I was not long in finding out the cause of the difficulty between the birds. It came 
from the deep-seated animosity which I already knew. It was the beginning of a 
bloody feud which might have the most serious consequences for the miserable birds; 
or rather it was the first strategic movement of a campaign which might last the whole 
winter. I had heard and read of pitched battles among the sparrows, and was, per- 
haps, to witness something of the kind on the largest scale. 

The reader is aware that from the first, had it not been for the noble exception of 
the patriarchs, natives and Twit-Twats would have been declared by any ethnologist 
to be two irreconcilable races, and every one knows what this means. But for what 
particular reason had the young Twit-Twats lately attacked the native birds and driven 
them from the convent facade into the garden, as they had done only a few days be- 
fore? Was it because the natives frequently came to feed from the scréenings scatter- 
ed in the barnyard of the rectory, which, being east of the church, the Twit-Twats might 
have considered as belonging to their territory ; or was it the effect of a long-nourished 
spirit of retaliation for the inexcusable conduct of the whole native brood toward the 
old Twit-Twat couple which had nearly ended in their death on Christmas day? I 
could not say what was the cause of the war, but that there was now a state of war 
there could not be the least doubt. 

If the reader wishes to investigate the subject scientifically he will find that, 
according to the best naturalists of the day who have studied their habits, there are 
occasionally fearful battles among sparrows. He will meet in those books the formal 
statement that the birds assemble, often to the number of many hundreds, on the roof of 
some large edifice and then engage in furious combat. The two parties, they say, are 
easily distinguished from each other. The birds appear to adhere to the one side from 
the first ; they never desert their flag, nor do they change sides even at the end of the 
struggle. There must evidently be a great cause of conflict, common to many indivi- 
duals, which all have espoused with ardor, and which they pursue to the end either of 
victory or defeat. What naturalists say of this resembles so much what takes place 
among men that, in my opinion, if the sparrows had, in their process of evolution, in- 
vented the art of writing they might have chronicles of their exploits pretty much like 


TTT 
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Beginning of a Battle over the Convent. 


wu OU 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 41 


ours. Something like the Trojan war, or the deadly struggle between the Persians 
and Greeks in the time of Xerxes, might amuse the spare hours of sparrows when 
they have done hatching their broods in summer and go rusticating, as they cer- 
tainly do. 

Long ago, in my native country, I had heard from common report of the fearful 
battles between sparrows which country-people sometimes observe in the suburbs of 
large towns in France. Either on the roof of a capacious barn, or, better still, in the 
vicinity of a windmill, according to rumor, they congregate in thousands ; but I sup- 
pose Dame Rumor exaggerates as usual, and that we must read hundreds when she 
writes thousands. For in the old country such feats of daring among Liliputian bipeds 
are not recorded in scientific books, nor are they loudly trumpeted in any veracious 
newspaper even. In this country, however, public opinion is more carefully instruct- 
ed and formed by the journalists and naturalists, so that, besides treatises on natural 
history, the daily journals accurately register all that occurs in the cities or towns; 
and I remember well in particular that a severe conflict between sparrows was reported 
in full in the spring of 1863, a few years before the occurrence of which I now speak, 
in a Troy paper—the Troy Whig, I think—which I daily received for my personal in- 
struction. It seems that several dozens of sparrows were killed in that early fight. 
Bird-battles I had, therefore, read about and pondered over, but never had I personally 
witnessed anything of the kind. Now I was to enjoy such a privilege, and I did my 
best to become acquainted with all the particulars. 

I had come just in the nick of time. From the reverend mother’s narrative, there 
had been so far only what may be called skirmishing; but when I- took a favor- 
able position for an exact observation of the whole field, I immediately remarked that 
the Twit-Twats, having driven away the natives from the front of the house, were 
drawn up on the top of the sisters’ convent, their backs turned west toward Fourth 
Street, and they were all looking east in the direction of a frame building which stood 
beyond the sisters’ garden, along Trenton Street. On the top of the frame building 
the native brood were already in battle array. The Twit-Twats appeared to be the ag- 
gressors ; and, having penetrated so far into the enemy’s territory, they seemed deter- 
mined to drive him altogether from the sisters’ premises along toward the east into 
the wild grounds of the County Poorhouse, which is not far off. Had this plan suc- 
ceeded the victorious Twit-Twats would have been able to enjoy in peace not only the - 
sacred ground around the church and the rectory, occupied by them since Christmas, 
but also the holy and pleasant retreat where the nuns, during the hours of recreation, 
were accustomed to rest from their labors. It was evidently a grand object and worth 
fighting for. 

But it was just this which inspired the native battalions with the courage of de- 
spair ; and when their enemies approached them on the top of the frame house which 
was their last resting-place on their former grounds, it became at once a hand-to-hand, 
or rather a claw-to-claw, conflict, the result of which appeared doubtful from the begin- 


49 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


ning. The better to understand the details of this fierce engagement, it is proper to 
know that this frame house was used by the sisters—and is used yet, I think—as an in- 
fant school. Behind it, along Trenton Street, a stage had been erected for the amuse- 
ment of the children, and served them for their infantine gymnastic exercises. There 
were many wooden steps up which the babies could march singing in unison, and at 
the top of the steps was a large platform on which they could exercise to advantage 
when the weather was fine and the sun shone. 

After a quarter of an hour’s severe fighting and shrill screaming in that place the 
Twit-Twats found, to their cost, that a good general is necessary when an army thinks 
of invading an enemy’s territory, and they had no general. Old Twit-Twat was still 
in his cottage. I myself saw with dismay—for I do not conceal the side to which I 
leaned—that the Twit-Twats would have immediately to retreat, if they wished to con- 
tinue longer as a race. A good many pairs of them had already fallen from the roof of 
the frame house, and were rolling down the steps of the gymnasium, pursued by the 
infuriated natives. 

There was nothing for them to do but to retreat in good order while there was yet 
time to do so. They fell back, as military writers say, to the Fourth Street side of the 
top of the convent, which but half an hour before they had left with the highest hopes 
of victory. Here it is good to let them rest for a moment. 

During this short recess it is proper to remark that when an army has been driven 
back from an advanced position, and has been obliged to reoccupy its previous one, 
a wager can be laid of five to one that this army is in great danger of being defeated 
a second time on account of demoralization, to use another military term. This could 
be proved by a hundred examples taken from the campaigns of Charlemagne a thou- 
sand years ago, from those of Napoleon I. at the beginning of this century, without 
speaking of the civil war in our own country not many years ago. Thus the Twit- 
Twats had a poor chance, and they did well to rest, though it were for a few moments 
only, while the natives prepared to attack them again and drive them entirely out of 
their territory. 

This was but the affair of a few instants, for the poor Twit-Twats were still flut- 
tering with dismay and had not fully recovered their natural courage. Again several 
pairs of them rolled down from the roof of the convent and fell into Fourth Street on 
the other side. In the meantime the main body retreated across the street in such 
terror that they did not even attempt to take a new position on the church, which was 
a little farther west and certainly formed a part of their dominion. They flew over 
and beyond it, coming down on the other side and alighting in the Lombardy poplars, 
where they thought themselves secure against the possibility of an attack. They im- 
agined, poor little fools, that their enemies would be satisfied with the immense advan- 
tages already gained and would content themselves with taking possession again of 
their whole former ground. In fact, the natives’ movements appeared to give color to 
that opinion, for they began to twitter in oreat glee, as if they were singing a final 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 43 


song of triumph, as is usual after a victory. But I had a more correct notion of their 
greedy spirit ; I knew they would think of at once wresting from the Twit-Twats their 


_ new hard-gained position, and would invade the broad acres that lay west of Third 


Street as far as Second, and further. I therefore concluded to go home, where I could 
better observe the future movements of the two armies, which were now to take place 
under my windows. But it is good to mention incidentally that before I left the 
convent grounds many of the sisters came to me with their hands full of sparrows. 
In the goodness of their hearts they had visited the scene of the first conflict around 
the children’s gymnasium, and found many poor Twit-Twats there who were already 
reviving from their wounds and fainting fits, so’ that there was every prospect of a full 
recovery for them. The fact is that, after the most rigorous search, only one corpse 
could be discovered, which, after all, was probably not a very great loss for the Twit- 
Twat army. 

On this first breaking out of hostilities the thoughtless Twit-Twats were guilty of 
the same imprudence which was generally observed in this country on the occasion of 
the various conflicts between Catholic immigrants and the Native American non- 
Catholic faction. They appeared to be the aggressors. This has just been said of the 
birds, and it was repeated ad nauseam by the Know-nothing papers of the United 
States whenever Catholic immigrants were pounced upon, beaten, killed, their houses 
burned as at Louisville, their churches destroyed as at Philadelphia, or their religious 
institutions burned down as at Boston, etc., etc. Aggressors! How could they be? 
All they asked was to be allowed ‘‘to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness,’’ which, according to the Declaration of Independence, are justly called the in- 
alienable rights of man. To an impartial observer it is clear that the conflict was 
forced both upon the foreign birds and the foreign men. But we must hasten on and 
describe the sequel of a conflict which has so far only begun. This will be the object 
of the next chapter. 


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A GLORIOUS BATTLE-FIELD AND THE FIRST GREAT TWIT-TWAT VICTORY. 


axis 
| PES : 
|| HAD been scarcely a quarter of an hour in my room when I perceived 


that my anticipations of what the native troops would try to do were 
about to be realized. They had felt bold enough, as was seen, to press 


forward with vigor in the first flush of their victory—ay, to leave their 
own ground and invade that of the Twit-Twats. For some time I could 
hardly understand what really was going on, for the main conflict was 
then raging over my head on the roof of the parsonage, and but few 
birds were as yet fighting in the poplars. Soon, however, the state of 
things.was apparent, for down from the roof to the trees came both natives and Twit- 
Twats with arush. Thenceforth I could distinctly see them, as they were a few feet 
only from my windows. The poplars fairly bent beneath their weight, and there was 
not a branch, not a twig of the trees upon which there were not several of them, and 
all furiously fighting, and mostly in pairs. Did I but know the names of the indi- 
viduals I might describe many a passage at arms between heroes of the contending 
armies, as Homer has done in his celebrated J7iad. One, at least, of them I did 
recognize, and this was the venerable Twit-Twat patriarch whom I had so often before 
studied with attention. He was there, though he had not been of the expedition to 
the convent. But no doubt he was aware that his numerous progeny were now fight- 
ing pro aris et focis, and that at this perilous moment it was his duty as chieftain to 
be at their head. The gentle native patriarch did not join his side in the fray from 
reasons that, considering his past conduct, we can well imagine—chiefly, perhaps, from 
the repugnance he always felt to the turbulence: and bad manners of his own young 
colony. 

Old Mr. Twit-Twat began at once to put order into his battalions. As he flew con- 
stantly from one side of the battle-field to the other, it was easy to conjecture that his 
only object was organization y and, in fact, I immediately remarked a great change in 
the ranks of the Twit-Twats. They no longer gave way before the enemy, but held 
their ground with a oreat deal of steadfastness and intrepidity. The ardor of their 
chief was evidently animating them, and they seemed to have altogether forgotten their 


previous defeat. 
45 


46 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


Then a remarkable sight met my eyes. Each poplar-tree formed a distinct field of 
contention. In our human way of speaking of military affairs we should say that each 
tree contained an organized battalion, and if you embraced in the compass of your 
vision several trees together it looked exactly like what, in military parlance, is called a 
division. Had you made a further step in point of combination you would have be- 
fore you an army corps. I beg my reader to believe that there is nothing far-fetched 
in these expressions. They represent exactly what fell under my personal. observation 
during that remarkable day. On the native side, it must be remarked, there did not 
appear to be anything like the order, the strategic combination, the weighty concentra- 
tion which the Twit-Twats offered to human eyes. And, indeed, there was nothing sur- 
prising in this: they had no chief. 

The result was as sure as fate. Victory perched on the Twit-Twat standard ; but 
the process took some time for its full accomplishment, and we have still to describe the 
various steps through which it passed. 

And first there was a general retreat on the part of the natives. This time the 
Twit-Twats did not push their enemies back eastward to their own former grounds 
around the sisters’ convent. Whatever may have been the motive, they drove them 
gradually in the very contrary direction—that is, towards the west. It looked as if 
they maliciously intended to push them on towards the Hudson River, which is not 
very far off, and there mercilessly drown them. The native birds, however, did not go 
so far in their flight. They found just on the further side of Third Street, at the edge 
of a waste field extending to the very sidewalk of Second Street, a rather large brick 
house in full view from my windows, and their disordered bands rested on this house. 
This was the second stage of the movement. 

Their distance from me at that point was greater than on any previous occasion ; 
still, I could perfectly distinguish everything without the help of an opera-glass, 
though I had borrowed one from a friend at the very beginning of these accurate obser- 
vations. The Twit-Twats followed their enemies, who kept huddled together. It was 
push, drive, and hurl forward, until the Twit-Twats at length took possession of a 
large frame building contiguous to the one of brick occupied by the native troops. 

I remarked with pleasure that not only old Mr. Twit-T'wat was there commanding 
his troops, but even Mrs. Twit-Twat herself, now fully recovered, had placed herself at 
the head of a great number of female warriors, whom it was easy to distinguish from 
the males by the subdued colors of their heads and wings. It was evident that, as this 
was to be a decisive action, the whole nation was roused, and the gentler sex even was 
going to display its valor. I imagined that I saw before me a noble troop of Amazons, 
and the wonderful story related by ancient authors, which used to make us laugh when 
we were at school, did not appear on this occasion to be so perfectly ludicrous. 

The two armies, raised on high between the earth and the skies, and perched on 
their respective houses, stood a moment in silence fronting each other. Then the fray 
began. On the native side there was no order whatever, for they had no one to lead 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 47 


them ; but there was in their breasts a deep feeling of obstinacy which might be called 
the courage of despair. After haying been so long victorious, to see themselves in this 
hopeless condition, their former ground almost out of sight, and the river near them in 
the west ominously rolling its dark waters as a cold bath in which they might be sub- 
merged! There was enough in all their present surroundings to freeze the blood in 
their veins, or rather to send it violently rushing to their heads and impel them to the 
most violent resolves. Soon you could see the battalions on both sides advancing, and 
retreating, and fighting. But what struck me most at the beginning of this furious 
battle was the incredible amount of screaming. It was worse than the shrill squeaks 
that you hear in the early July mornings, when the sparrows begin the day by a loud 
concert sufficient to awaken the most heavy slumberers ; it was worse even than the 
harsh screams which you sometimes hear issue from the throsts of two male birds fight- 
ing almost to extinction at the top of a tall tree over your head ; it was the harshest 
confusion of shrill sounds, as if their throats had been made of brass and their beaks 
of adamant. Nothing but a foreign language can express it, and the French have the 
best simile that can be found, although it does not yet come up to the reality: C était 
un énorme timbre de voiz, filling the air with discord and striking the ear of the lis- 
‘tener with a piercing pang. 

In spite of the swpersparrow* courage of the natives it was evident that their want 
of discipline consequent upon the total absence of a commander would be in the end 
fatal to their cause. Owing to the ability of old General Twit-Twat on the other side 
not even a corporal’s squad of the natives could at, any time obtain a footing on the 
frame house on which the Irish birds had established their headquarters ; and soon 
enough, on the contrary, a whole Irish battalion pushed their advancing columns up to 
the very top of the brick edifice where the natives had proudly planted their flag. 
That advanced part of the hostile Twit-Twat army comprised even a full regiment of 
Amazons, though old Mrs. Twit-Twat could not be seen there and remained among her 
friends. I presume her old mate had refused her the permission to risk her precious 
life in so hazardous a position. 

But at any rate the Irish warriors forced their way into the very midst of their 
enemies, who soon appeared doomed to instant defeat. A circumstance, however, very 
fortunate for them delayed that fatal moment a little while longer. It has been said 
that the two edifices were contiguous to each other. This, however, must be some- 
what qualified. Owing to the projection of the cornices a space of about two feet had 
been left between the two buildings ; and it happened that the chimneys of both raised 
their flues in close contiguity to each other. This afforded a great advantage to the 
despairing natives, and they might even hope that this peculiarity of construction 
would be the means of allowing them to invade a part of the Twit-Twat quarters. A 
fierce struggle, therefore, was soon going on around the chimney-flues. It was there, it 


* We are not fond of neology; still, when it isa matter of necessity a new word must be coined. We say, speak- 


ing of our own race, superhuman courage ; why not supersparrow courage when we have to speak of these little birds? 


“Te 


48 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


is true, that the chief carnage of the native birds took place, but many a Twit-Twat also 
bit the ground in the same dangerous spot. When a bird on either side was exhaust- 
ed, and could no longer keep his balance on the edge of the roof, he fell down between 
the two houses, and there was scarcely any hope of his soon reviving and reappearing 
on the same battle-field. After a short time I noticed that there was a perfect heca- 
tomb of victims, and it was principally in this way that the ranks on both sides were 
thinned. But the losses were invariably much greater in the native army. It was evi- 
dent that by this process the contest would soon be ended, and that through the want 
of warriors on the defeated side there would, within about half an hour from the onset, 
be but little fighting. This saved the native troops, however, for they could not be 
driven to the river and drowned em masse; and it was clear, besides, that many of 
those who had fallen in the conflict would in course of time revive and resume the 
thread of their exploits. Thus our story is not yet finished, for many other important 
events will have to be recorded before the final triumph of the good cause. 

The reader may ask why I did not go to the very spot of the ‘‘hecatomb”’ directly 
after the struggle was over, and then and there see to the revival of my friends the 
Twit-Twats, and to the complete extinction of life in their enemies. A good moral rea- 
son for abstaining from it could be given, which, however, was not the true one. I - 
might say that if during life it is easy to distinguish the members of each party, it is 
not the same when they are either dead or in a fainting condition; so that I should 
have scarcely been able to decide which to revive and which to strangle. But there was 
another and better reason. It was at the end of January, if I mistake not. <A deep, 
hard-frozen snow, which had, in fact, been turned to ice, lay spread all over the street, 
but particularly along and between the two houses. I should have had to put on a 
pair of skates ; this, it is true, I might have done, but I could not skate, having never 
in my life learned how to enjoy that healthful exercise. Let the reader accept this ex- 
cuse, and allow me to proceed with the narrative of that important engagement. 

The native troops were for this time completely routed, and the Twit-Twats, while 
singing their peean of triumph, knew they would for a long time be left in peace to feed 
on the fat of the land, and to multiply indefinitely to the great advantage of their race. 
There is scarcely any need of remarking that this has also been invariably the case with 
the European immigrants. Whatever may have been the trials they had on many oc- 
casions to undergo, they have always overcome them in the end, acquired power and 
influence in the country they had adopted, and have become at last true American citi- 
zens. Ifa number of them have been unequal to the task and have perished inglori- 
ously, the mass has succeeded beyond any human expectation, and to this day many 
of them are an honor to their original country and religion. 

In concluding this chapter I anticipate a strong objection on the part of the read- 
er. It may be said: ‘‘In opening yonr book, Mr. Author, we. thought that the re- 
nowned Twit-Twats, for whom you have such deep predilection, were to give us the 
example of all the Christian virtues, and we still remember the texts you quoted from 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 49 


‘Holy Scripture to prove that Almighty God has given the animals their instinct in 
order to teach men true wisdom, etc., etc. Now, is not the conduct of your pets scan- 
dalous? And if your readers feel any pleasure in this little book, will they not be 
tempted to imitate your brave heroes and to adopt the same life of depredation and 
bloodshed, ete., ete. ?’’ This objection I have constantly had before my eyes, and I 
must answer it in my own plain way ; prefixing, however, the reflection, made once be- 
fore, that this is a serious matter, and that we are not now in the domain of the ludi- 
crous. This is not to be met with a laugh. 

The Twit-Twats, and in general all animals, are, as it were, pertacti in their instinct. 
They always strictly obey the laws of their nature, and thus, although themselves de- 
prived of a moral law, they can teach us morality. If they ever commit any excess in 
eating, drinking, etc., it is always at the instigation of man, when, being reduced to a 
state of servitude which is often called domesticity, they are placed in conditions alto- 
gether abnormal to their nature, and are forced to indulge in appetites which they 
never show in a state of freedom. Thus the poor goose is fed in such a manner that 
her liver becomes larger and heavier than the remainder of her body, in order to tickle 
the palate of a miserable epicure. Go through all the trumpeted cases of excess in 
animals, and you will find that man is at the bottom of it. Man alone, in fact, has 
been touched by original sin and disobeys the commands of his God. 

It is only the state of almost universal war existing among creatures inferior to 
man which could create a serious difficulty; and it is well known that John Stuart 
Mill thought he had found in it a strong basis for his deplorable and disgraceful athe- 
ism. Protestant theologians have supposed that the whole of creation was affected by 
the sin of Adam. I do not think that the Church has ever consecrated this opinion, 
which you will not find in any Catholic dogmatical treatises. War among men is un- 
doubtedly, as well as death, the effect of our first parents’ disobedience. None would 
have died if sin had not first stepped in. But even in case man had not prevaricated 
war would have existed among animals, since the carnivorous species have received 
their teeth and their stomachs at their first creation, and they feed on flesh. Animals 
have not been given for food to man only, but they must devour each other, since for 
many of them there is no other way to live than to prey upon others. 

It has been proved by naturalists of repute that in the greater number of cases it is 
for a large number of them the least painful way of ending their life. Sudden death, 
which for man must be dreadful, on account of his expectation of a hereafter, is for ani- 
mals only the sudden deliverance from infirmity and sickness, against which there is no 
other provision ; and the speedy ending of their troubles under the tiger’s claws or 
within the eagle’s sharp talons is often a real blessing for the poor kid or the miserable 
shepherd’s dog. Mr. Mill supposes that if God exists everything must be absolutely 
faultless, as if created things partook of the divine nature and were not naturally and 
necessarily subject to imperfection. Give us your plan, Mr. Mill, and please tell us 
what you would have done if it had been your business to create the world. You 


50 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


would probably have been as successful as Laplace, who found fault with the text of 
Genesis which says that the moon was made to give light to man during the darkness 
of night; and he pretended that such a position in the heavens, and such a way of ar- 
ranging the various orbits of sun, moon, and earth, eould be found as that our satellite 
would much better fulfil its function than it does at present. A simple Jesuit Father 
Caraffa—proved mathematically that in Laplace’s beautiful arrangement the moon 
would scarcely have given us the light which a rush candle furnishes to the peasant 
in his cabin. On the contrary, whoever knows what obstacles matter and sin offer to 
the benign designs of the Creator cannot but marvel how He has surmounted the diffi- 
culty and brought about the greatest amount of good in spite of the stubborn opposi- 
tion of evil. The wise Englishman—Mr. Mill—it is true, was of opinion that he him- 
self could have dispensed with evil altogether. But he showed by this that he little 
knew what evil really is, although all the time complaining of it. Had he read what 
St. Augustine has said of its nature he would have understood that to dispense with 
evil would have required God to desist from creating anything and from giving exist- 
ence to any being outside of Himself. vil, according to all true metaphysicians, is 
nothing in itself, and cannot be comprehended except as the limitation of good, which 
alone has a real existence. Hence all contingent—that is, created—beings, because they 
are limited, must partake of evil in some sense or other. And, mind, there is no need 
for this of supposing dualism. On the contrary, it is the only way of discarding dual- 
ism. Manicheism, or strict dualism, supposes the existence at the same time of two 
God-like Beings, equally infinite, powerful, and who are opposed to each other. The 
Christian belief, as exposed above, does not leave an inch of ground on which this doc- 
trine could rest, since it supposes that good alone exists, and evil is simply its -limita- 
tion. Mr. Mill, on the contrary, expresses his great displeasure at Christianity, or ra- 
ther theism, because he thinks that evil exists, and he makes God responsible for it. 
He thus becomes himself a Manichean by grumbling against the existence of evil and 
expressing his impotent wish that it might cease. But this discussion, in good con- 
science, is already too long. We must return to the state of war. 

Was it war, in fact? All our descriptions seemed to insinuate it, for the object 
was to portray humanity under the type of diminutive birds; and every one must ac- 
knowledge that man is fond of war, and that for him there is almost uninterruptedly a 
state of war, undertaken occasionally for its own sake. But the reader has not forgot- 
ten the writer’s declaration that the exterior facts in this story can be relied upon, be- 
cause they have happened exactly as they are represented ; but as to the motives as- 
signed to the birds in this book, they must be taken for what they are worth, and their 
truth cannot be altogether vouched for. The fact is that, at least in our opinion, there 
is on earth a real state of war for men only, who often have other motives than their 
whims for indulging in it. But with animals the case is altogether different. What 
appears amongst them to be war is simply the result of their position in nature. Many 
of them must eat flesh in order to live, and they cannot help it. As soon as their 


THE TWIT-TWATS, 51 


appetite is satisfied they cease from war; and the lion himself, when he is full, never 
attacks any prey. : 

I must consequently confess that I have made the Twit-Twats, and even the native 
birds, more ferocious than they really are. But it was the necessity of the case that 
obliged me to do so. I had to represent mankind under the veil of an allegory ; and 
who does not know the irrepressible inclination for bloodshed which is every day wit- 
nessed among us? It shows itself in every possible form: feuds in private families, 
open rupture of former friendship, deep hatred of old enemies, brawls in taverns, the 
famous word, Stand and deliver / on the highways, the madness of the inebriate, the 
fury of lust, the greed of avarice, all the other passions that sway the human heart, 
end frequently in blood, and the papers we read every day are often merely catalogues 
of similar tragedies. 

This, however, is entirely the result of individual excesses produced by human 
passions. What could not be said of the fearful doings of nations in the same line ? 
When millions of men are arrayed against each other and come to blows, with their 
monstrous engines of war and their ingenious devices for destroying life, then the earth 
shakes, and the sun is obscured, and the moon refuses her light, and Nature seems to 
be hastening to her end. 

Pages of a similar import could be written. We prefer to come toa more direct 
justification of our poor friends the Twit-Twats. Read their history again, as it has 
been so far described, and you will be inclined either to admit their perfect innocence, 
or at all events to believe them guilty of a slight misdemeanor. Were they not con- 
stantly acting in self-defence? And this is a sufficient excuse, as every one knows. 
Once, it is true, we have felt compelled to pronounce them in appearance to be aggres- 
sors and invaders of their antagonists’ territory. But although we could not then 
divine their precise motives, some were suggested sufficient even for a rigorous moral- 
ist. And on all those most satisfactory reasons our cause rests with the public—that 
is, with those who take interest in this story. They will concede, it is to be hoped, that 
the main drift of it is promotive of virtue and good feeling. This chapter may seem 
to be an anomaly, and to be intended for fostering in the reader’s heart a fierce martial 
ardor which the Christian cannot but deprecate. If it were so it would be going in a 
direction altogether contrary to the main tenor of the book. But it can be easily un- 
derstood that this is only an appearance; and as the matter has been sifted, even meta- 
physically, to the bottom, no one now has a right to assert that the Twit-Twats were at 
any moment of their checkered life swaggerers, fire-eaters, bullies, braggadocios, or 
jackanapes. Their unpretending history will never expose the unsophisticated reader 
to the danger of contracting such frightfully bad habits, or rather such downright vices 
which could not but lead to depravity. 


CHAPTER VIIE 


SUSPENSION OF HOSTILITIES—MATING OF THE BIRDS—BUILDING OF THEIR 
I 
NESTS. 


HE last chapter left both foreign and native birds in a somewhat disor- 
dered condition. If there appears something confused about their ex- 
istence since the Christmas day previous, it is owing entirely to my desire 
to be brief in my descriptions. But Horace himself long ago furnished 
me a good excuse, for he says in his Ars Poetica: ‘‘If you wish to be 
concise there is danger of becoming obscure.” Yet even if the reader 
has easily followed the drift of the story so far, a few words more will 
make it clearer. The natives, settled at the very beginning on the roofs 
of the church and parsonage and in the row of poplar-trees, had finally 

changed places with the Twit-Twats, who had at first occupied the front 
of the sisters’ convent, but not their garden. The native clan, dissatisfied probably 
with their patriarch, on the great day of the Saviour’s birth had gradually left their 
quarters, to my great surprise, and had at last invaded the sisters’ garden as well as 
the front of the convent, where they found the Twit-Twats in force ; and this, together 
perhaps with the fight for screenings, was the origin, if not the immediate cause, of the 
war that has been described. 

When the struggle was over the Irish birds were in possession of the whole con- 
vent territory as well as of the church and parsonage. They were, in fact, conquerors 
of a large empire, to which they would certainly not have dared to raise their aspira- 
tions before the first native attack. 

The latter wretched birds, though altogether routed from between Third and 
Second Streets and forced to move toward the west, had not, however, been driven 
into the Hudson River. Their first care was to reorganize their battalions before the 
coming of the gentle spring. This they did by settling in the wide district in which 
they found themselves after the battle. It happened, fortunately for them, that there 
was not as yet a single sparrow established in that quarter. They could rest and 
recruit themselves, and many warriors of their tribe, who had been supposed slain on 
the battle-field among that ‘‘ hecatomb”’ of victims of which I spoke, came back, one 
after another, like the stragglers spoken of constantly in the histories of war among 
men. It turned out, in fact, that their dead were comparatively few, and thus their 
52 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 53 


ranks were, after all, not greatly diminished. 1t took, however, the whole of February 
and March to bring the natives to that consoling view of their position and to reani- 
mate them with a new courage. 

They soon sent out scouts toward their old quarters, and began to reoccupy some 
of their former positions along Third Street, but not as yet in any of the famous Lom- 
bardy poplars. The Twit-Twats, who witnessed these movements, did not, perhaps, 
sufficiently reflect on the possible consequences ; but as they had full possession of the 
convent and indefinite elbow—or wing—room in an eastern direction, perhaps they 
thought it unnecessary to show irritation. Such was the position of both parties when 
April arrived. It was, in fact, a suspension of hostilities. 

it is proper to say a word again of the primitive bird-cottage. Old General Twit- 
Twat and his Amazon had not left it, and they continued to live in great concord with 
both the native patriarchs. These two venerable birds appeared to feel no regret for 
the discomfiture and departure of their turbulent progeny. I often saw them early in 
the morning or late in the afternoon near the door of their own cell, generally one out- 
side and the other inside of the cottage, only their heads being visible from my room. 
Sometimes the old Twit-Twats were at the same moment resting near the entrance to 
their own cell, and I felt a sensible pleasure in closely examining the four old creatures 
forming one group, as it were en famille, resting on their little feet, basking in the rays 
of the setting sun, looking gently at each other, or even softly chattering as if they 
were engaged in rational conversation. Such a scene would have been sufficient to in- 
spire a poet ; but I was too lazy at the time to write in verse, and I contented myself 
with looking and making a note of it. 

Meanwhile spring came on. The Lombardy poplars were almost green, and the 
sweet odor exhaling from their expanding buds filled the rooms of the rectory (when 
the windows were opened) as if a whole establishment of cosmetics had been set up by 
the enterprising sparrows for the especial purpose of gently tickling my olfactory 
nerves. I was resting one day near one of the windows, inhaling the delicious per- 
fume, when all at once I perceived better than ever before the sudden and irresistible 
advance of gentle spring. The maple-trees and elms planted along our side of Third 
Street were just opening their clusters of blossoms, which are generally despised by the 
ignorant, but produce on the learned in botany a feeling of surprise and admiration ; 
the lilac bushes in the small gardens around were bursting with the inevitable pro- 
pensity of showing off their youhg leaves and their pyramids of flower-buds ; a few 
daffodils were not afraid of exposing to the blasts of fickle April their yellow corollas, 
so well protected until this moment. 

This evident progress among flowering shrubs and trees was due to a few days of a 
mild temperature and a genial breeze. The air was balmy and the snow had quite disap- 
peared ; the few light and fleecy clouds in the blue sky announced beyond a doubt that 
they were no longer loaded with sleet and hail, but carried gentle dew and warm rain. 
The sun was now bright, and not only was its genial influence felt in the whole atmos- 


54 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


phere and on the surface of ponds and rivers, but even the crust of the soil, the bark 
of trees, the skin of man, and the thick, downy covering of birds and lambs became . 
all at once, as it were, conscious of it.. It was spring indeed, and the whole little world 
of the sparrows was soon going to be a sort of primitive paradise. The patriarchs in both 
cells in the bird-cottage felt it in spite of their advanced age, and I perceived at this mo- 
ment all four of them standing with evident delight on their diminutive platform, ¢wit- 
ting and twatting—let the reader allow me at least the liberty of coining these words— 
through the’ opening leaves of their budding poplar-tree. Whenever a gust of warm 
wind separated the branches for a moment the glorious orb of day touched them with 
its beams, and they fluttered with glee on feeling the gentle warmth of its rays. 

It was time, I thought, for the sparrows to mate and begin building their nests ; © 
but on a sudden I found that sparrows’ perceptions were keener than mine. The birds 
had been at it for several days, and I was ignorant of it. Man often imagines that 
because he is the ‘‘lord of creation’’ he could actively rule it, and could supervise all 
the operations recorded in the Opera et Dies of Hesiod. The world would be sadly 
governed indeed if this pretension were to be carried out. Many animated beings be- 
sides the sparrows would remain much behind in their calculations, if they had to wait 
for the order of their master, proud man. But fortunately man’s rights over nature 
are not strictly protected, and his humble servants, the mere animals, often take upon 
themselves to act without waiting for his commands. On the present occasion, though 
I could consider myself the master of this little world, in which I took the liveliest 
interest, the birds did very well not to remain idle until I spoke, for they had already 
done a great deal of which I must inform the reader, and upon which I had not the 
least influence. 

I cannot say if they had begun their mating exactly on St. Valentine’s day, which 
always falls on February 14, which was more than a month before I perceived the 
arrival of spring. The story of the holy martyr St. Valentine is well known, and there 
is, after all, nothing impossible for a great saint in the most difficult task which is 
assigned to him by the legend—namely, that of presiding at all matrimonial alliances 
in the birds’ republic. But the Church has left everybody free to have his own opin- 
ion on the subject. , 

Not having been sufficiently on the watch, I cannot exactly say if all the sparrows 
were mated as early as February 14. But I can vouch that on the day when my eyes 
were suddenly opened, whose exact date I cannot now furnish, but which was undoubt- 
edly very early in April—not later than the 8th—the male sparrows were all in the 
happy condition of benedicts. They had already selected their place of dwelling for 
the summer, and some of them had begun their nests. These various operations re- 
quire of me some details, and my long observation of the whole process enables me to 
speak almost ex professo. 

The reader must know first that there is seldom any fighting for the best localities, 
although there is undoubtedly a great difference between the various nooks and cor- 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 55 


ners and holes among which the sparrows have to choose. Some of these places 
are most convenient, others most unsuitable and objectionable ; and as each sparrow 
‘couple looks first for itself, it would be natural to suppose there would be no end of 
wrangling and contention among them on so important a subject. Suppose that the 
United States government had not arranged its pre-emption laws as prudently as it has 
done, and had allowed all new settlers to decide for themselves the question of locat- 
ing their claims ; what a nice state of affairs we should have among the border ruffians, 
as some of the frontiersmen used to be called! But the sparrows, without any State or 
Federal legislatures, have succeeded in deciding all these primitive questions of pro- 
perty in the simplest and most peaceful manner. I do not know if there is any such 
thing as a contrat social for them, as Rousseau thought there was, or must be, for man- 
kind ; but it looks as if there had been an agreement among all the individuals com- 
posing sparrowdom that the first occupant of any locality should have a sacred right to 
its possession, and (what is still better) as if all sparrows, without exception, were most 
faithful as to the inviolate keeping of that agreement. If you are on the lookout in 
early spring, when this interesting operation is taking place, you will before long re- 
mark that in case a fine pair of birds, evidently just arrived from another State, happen 
to alight at the entrance to a hole which they had descried from a great distance and 
had imagined to be precisely what they wanted, as soon as they perceive it to be al- 
ready occupied by another couple they retire with great modesty and prudence to look 
for another place. They do not show a desire to take forcible possession ; and indeed 
they carry their peaceful demeanor so far as to manifest the same good nature even 
when there is no prospect of finding another place, and they see themselves compelled 
to build the awkward nests of which we shall speak by and by, and which are their 
last makeshift. This is certainly remarkable in birds that are so boisterous, and I must 
confess that in this regard the native sparrows were no worse than the Twit-Twats. 

It will not do here to enter into a protracted disquisition on the interesting subject 
of nest-building among birds. The nests of sparrows are the only ones that can be ex- 
amined at this moment. Such as we know them, sparrows are almost half-domesticated . 
animals ; and it is known that all creatures of that description depending more or less 
on man show very little skill in anything connected with their domestic economy. 
Look at animals that are altogether under man’s control, and say if they do not ap- 
pear altogether stupid. The hen, for instance, the goose, the canary-bird even, no 
more know how to construct a nest than they do how to regulate for themselves the 
number of their eggs and the frequency of their broods. It would be unfair, there- 
fore, to expect sparrows to be skilful mechanics or artistic builders. Among them 
are no weayers, no carpenters, no wood-sawyers, no masons, not, in fine, any artificers 
whatever—unlike many free-winged tribes whose splendid works of all those kinds are 
described in books of natural history. aie, Ropakee { 

The sparrows’ only skill consists in selecting a hole and stuffing it with hay, or dried 
grass, or even bits of paper or threads of wool and cotton ; all this spread at random, 


i 


ie 


eat Bl 


an 
| 
i 
p | 


F Tih h TO 
Weisel hig p 
ml ee 


i 


pony TTA Ar as 


hye 


eee 


Aig! 


{ty pin 
( 


at bese somii\ 
oe 
all iy 


iD 


f 


ie rh 


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SUTIN 


SS 


The Spring—Construction of Nests. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 57 


with an eye more to bulk than to perfection of details. They depend so much on 
man for helping them to procure even these clumsy materials that if you have the 
kindness to spread before your door all the sweepings of your rooms they will appear 
very thankful. Should you happen to be a milliner your neighborhood will be for 
them a place of predilection; and of all the refuse of your workshop—silk, cotton, 
wool, straw, etc., etc.—they will make a clean sweep, leaving on the ground only the 
pins and the needles which they do not.appear to need, and of which they have not as 
yet learned the various uses. Nay, more, should you wish to gratify them complete- 
ly and make them at once your friends, follow exactly the prescription I am going to 
give you, and which my personal experience when a boy has proved to me to be the 
best. Take a good-sized earthen crock, and make a round hole in the bottom of it 
large enough for the birds to enter; hang it to a nail near some back window, visible 
only from a yard where the sparrows venture to come. Fill the vessel with hay and 
some clean rags, and see chiefly that its large mouth is nailed tightly against the house 
wall. The couple of sparrows that will see it first will be in an ecstasy of delight at a 
‘godsend which delivers them from the trouble of finding a hole and building a nest. 
They will probably be there the morning after you have hung up the crock; in a few 
days, at the latest, there will be some eggs in it, and at the end of a few weeks you will 
have a brood of five or six new-fledged sparrows, of whom you can dispose as you 
choose. This shows better than anything else the habits of these birds with respect to 
nest-building. 

But now back to our narrative. Soon all around the rectory, the church, and the 
convent the Twit-Twats were busy attending to their domestic concerns. As I did not 
wish them to acquire habits of complete laziness, I took good care not to furnish them 
with crocks and pots. They had to look for places of refuge, and to display their indus- 
try in garnishing them the best way they could. There were no holes in the walls, as 
all the buildings around were new, or nearly so ; but there were many recesses, cornices, 
projecting eaves, and angles of every description. The reader already knows that the 
front of the convent was full of such things as these, and that in November and Decem- 
ber there were reasons why they would: not be comfortable for birds. But in early 
April the poor sparrows were not wise enough to foresee anything of the kind, and 
some of them selected with avidity spots which, at the end of the breeding season, they 
would find to their cost would be far from pleasant. 

It was a pleasure, nevertheless, to see them at work. They flew from every quar- 
ter and went in all directions. I have seen some of them carry in their comparatively 
slender bills long shreds of every possible sort of materials, though hay and straw pre- 
dominated. It would be curious, as we have hinted before, to empty their holes in the 
fall and examine with care the stuff of which the beds of their young are composed. 
A systematic statistician would find there an interesting subject of study, more useful, 
perhaps, than many of the usual attempts at moral, physical, and apace ess specu- 
lations from statistics, 


58 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


One great advantage resulted from their well-meant activity—they did not think of 
fighting. The dreadful tragedies which have been sufficiently portrayed always hap- 
pen late in the season and chiefly in the heart of winter. When they think exclusive- 
ly of the birth and the rearing of their young their breasts are animated only with soft 
feelings, and the quiet domestic virtues reign supreme among them. Their moral con- 
dition is in accord with the gentle breathing of the air around ; and though they are 
never heard to coo like the doves, I have no doubt that they are under the same molli- 
fying influence, but are unable to express it by their throats, owing altogether to the 
difference of organization. Be this as it may, the golden age had certainly come back 
for them, and their extensive empire looked like a paradise of innocence and guiltless- 
ness. All this, it is to be remarked, happened in the Twit-Twats’ dominion only, for 
they were complete masters of this new Garden of Eden. 

Meanwhile what were the conquered natives doing? This is an important question 
for the progress of the story. Had they entirely given up their guilty plots, and was 
there not some danger to be expected from that quarter? It has been seen that in the 
new district where they had settled they had found no other sparrows, and thus could 
indulge in strife among themselves only. The severe punishment, moreover, which 
they had received had somewhat cooled their martial ardor, and it was to be hoped that, 
for some time at least, they would keep the peace. It has been remarked, however, that 
they had already sent out scouts in the direction of their former grounds, and had re- 
occupied some of their old positions along Third Street, but on the western side of it. 
Along that line of manceuvre they were in a dangerous proximity to the Twit-Twat 
possessions ; but as they also appeared to be altogether occupied with nest-building, 
there was a possibility that there would be no conflict. 

Unfortunately the peculiarity of their position to a great degree curtailed their 
chances of an indefinite multiplication by breeding. In their new territory they had 
found no edifice of large proportions—no churches, no convents, no parsonages. Only 
far toward the west and north there were huge iron-factories looming up along the Hud- 
son River ; but the constant noise, the dense smoke, the brightness of a lurid fire which 
issued forth from windows and doors, instead of inviting them to come, were calculated 
to fill them with terror. The houses in the midst of which they had settled were all 
very small—only one or two stories high—and offered to the sight no cornices, no re- 
cesses, no angles whatever. To complete the despairing look of the situation, no trees 
had been planted along the streets, and you could see in the little gardens back of 
the houses only an abundance of potatoes and cabbages, and perhaps a few shrubs 
of the most humble and common kind where sparrows never think of nestling. The 
prospect of the natives, it must be confessed, was disheartening. 

Some of them had already begun their nests under the far-projecting eaves of a 
public school-house, which was the only prominent object along Second Street ; but 
this edifice, though roomy and somewhat imposing, was not large enough by far for 
the conquered tribe, so that the problem appeared indeed insoluble, as they say in 


THE, TWIT-TWATS. 59 


algebra. Many of them went as far as a solitary old farm-house which still stood on 
the bank of the river at the very extreme southwestern limit of the new native terri- 
tory. But besides several ugly dogs and cats which were always prowling around that 
desolate spot, there were no less than four families living in the house, all, as usual, 
blessed with a number of children, for whom the sparrows feel an excusable aversion. 
In spite of all these disadvantages, that dingy old dwelling was soon honeycombed with 
nests, preparatory to containing a large colony of young birds, destined most of them 
to death under the teeth of dogs and cats, or to slavery in the hands of unfeeling 
boys. 

In these circumstances many of the natives, unable to find accommodation in their 
undisputed district, began to crowd on the side of it nearest to the Twit-Twat empire, 
since it has been justly so called. Many of them, however, keeping strictly to their 
own side of Third Street, and pushing north, fortunately found better houses as well as 
a row of large trees planted many years back, where they immediately began to build 
nests, as there were not holes and corners enough around. There remained at last only 
half a dozen native couples still unprovided, and they placed themselves on guard just 
in front of the Lombardy poplars, where they had thrived for so long a time, and whi- 
ther some of them were evidently bent on returning. They thought probably that, 
since their patriarchal sires were still living in the little cottage which they shared so 
amicably with old General Twit-Twat and his Amazon, they also had a right to occupy 
any vacant spot in the neighborhood. This was ominous of future contention. 

I eagerly followed with my eyes the doings of this bold colony, from which I fore- 
saw that the evils of war might again ensue. A very remarkable fact confirmed me in 
my former opinion about the sacredness of the rights vested in the first occupants of 
holes and recesses. All these were tenanted by Twit-Twat couples, and no native dared 
to disturb them in their possession. Though the same antipathy evidently continued 
to exist between both races, none of the defeated birds appeared inclined even to con- 
trovert the rights of their natural enemies and endeavor to drive them off by force from 
their peaceful abodes. Their only object was to build nests of their own in the tall 
poplars so often mentioned, which were then a part and parcel of the Twit-Twat 
empire. 

Soon .a bold native pair flew up to the very top of one of the largest trees and 
began furiously to chirp, as if they were daring any opponent to evict them. This 
proceeding was directly imitated by the five other unprovided couples; and I then 
understood that we were probably going to enjoy the sight of six huge nests, whose 
building-up I would be able to study with the greatest advantage. In fact, the first 
pair that had arrived began operations immediately on taking possession of the tree. 

The poplar they had selected was at some distance from the windows of my room, 
and had grown to larger proportions than many of the others, on account of the rich 
soil its roots had found by a lucky chance. Ata distance of abort fifteen feet from 
the ground a strong limb grew from the trunk, surrounded at the junction by a num- 


~-  - = 
eo oy Ay: 


60 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


ber of small shoots forming a kind of loose wicker basket close to the tree and adorned 
with green leaves, around which, most of the time, a gentle breeze seemed to play 
wantonly. 

The two birds, not losing a moment’s time (for April was already on the wane, and 
all the other pairs were ahead of them), pounced upon everything they could find in 
the street, and brought to the spot they had chosen either long strings of hay and 
straw that had fallen from farmers’ carts, or narrow strips of blue, red, or white paper 
carried by the wind from the houses and scattered without order in all directions. 
There could not, indeed, be observed in their work the same regularity as in the nest 
of the European goldfinch, or, better still, in that of the Baltimore oriole. The spar- 
rows, aS was said, are wretched architects and make very poor weavers. They answer 
among birds to the race of troglodytes among men, who, according to modern ethnolo- 
gists, lived originally in caves before our species had the skill of inventing dwellings 
of wood or stone. I must again repeat that when the sparrows cannot possibly find 
any hole or natural recess in walls or rocks they are compelled to roughly build in the 
branches of trees ugly apologies for nests, which have nothing in common with the 
airy constructions of chaffinches or black-caps. Their attempts at architecture or 
weaving result in sorry specimens of unsightly ugliness and absolute deformity. You 
can see among the green leaves only a shapeless mass, or rather an ill-looking heap of 
incongruous materials, against which the wind will howl and the rain pour in torrents, 
in order promptly to demolish it, when the stormy season of November arrives. This 
was the sorry sight afforded by the active and untiring natives in their awkward build- 
ing operations. 

I was, however, anxious to discover if there were not some redeeming features in 
their fantastic work, as I could not believe that these industrious birds were altogether 
deprived of skill and ingenuity. I wished to better judge of their ability to procure 
interior comfort, at least, if they were far from remarkable for the exterior beauty of 
their dwellings. I could not think, at my age, of risking my life on a rough ladder, 
which was at hand and could be placed against the slender trunk of the poplar-tree. 
But on the very top of the rectory there was, fortunately, and there is still, a square 
platform surrounded by white banisters, from which, with the help of my opera-glass, 
I could easily distinguish the whole interior of this last refuge of the poor defeated 
birds. I soon became almost lost in surprise and admiration. Had they finished their 
nest above by constructing a large aperture open to heaven, as is the custom for many 
birds, it would have naturally ended below in something like the inverted tube of a 
funnel, and thus their young would have been at the mercy of cold, wind, and rain, 
and exposed to all the fury of April storms. They had shown a great deal of good 
sense, for they gave it, on the contrary, a quite different shape. On the side looking 
south they had intertwined their clumsy materials in the shape of a rude covered gal- 
lery, the opening receiving the sun’s rays, and the lower end being the very bottom of 
the nest, eight inches at least from the aperture, 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 61 


From the high platform where I stood a good part of the city of Troy could be 
seen, but I confess that at this moment my attention was altogether engrossed by the 
single object hanging like a misshapen wisp of straw thrown at random against the 
stem of a poplar-tree. This was sufficient, in my mind, to redeem the wrongly-despised 
judgment of my dear sparrows. 

There is no need of repeating the same lengthened narrative for the five other pairs 
of birds who had remained unaccommodated with a place for rearing their young. 
They constructed their nests in the same fashion, and I had a splendid opportunity of 
observing their ways of acting when they have a nest as well as when they have a hole. 
My leisure time during the month of April was devoted to that study. 

I shall not annoy the reader with the tedious recital of all my discoveries, which 
were most of them of little consequence for others, though they were all full of in- 
terest for me. But a remarkable fact resulting from all that nest-building, and of 
great importance for the sequel of this story, cannot be left altogether unrecorded, 
the more so that it gave increased boldness to the whole native crew and became the 
source of manifold miseries to the Twit-Twats. It would have been a great blessing for 
both races had the strict separation continued which was the happy result of the 
bloody war described in the last chapter. But the near neighborhood of the wander- 
ing birds in the poplar-trees, and the actual presence of the venerable native couple, 
who continued to live peacefully in the midst of the victorious Twit-Twats, were the 
fatal occasion which brought in their train new misfortunes to our interesting little 
friends. 


CHAPTER IX. 


OMINOUS RISING OF A NEW NATIVE LEADER—MULTIPLICATION OF BOTH RACES. 


HE first bold bird who constructed his awkward nest in the renowned 
poplar-tree was undoubtedly the oldest and most famous of all the pro- 
geny of the ancient native patriarchs. I had remarked him very many 
times before. He had taken a most active part in the battles that had 
well-nigh destroyed the Twit-Twat race in and around the sisters’ con- 
vent. I-would easily have distinguished him among a thousand other 
sparrows ; but there was particularly an honorable scar left on his face 
in one of the most furious contests of the previous winter’s campaign 
—a scar which must be described in detail, in order to show that the 

identity of the bird cannot be controverted. 

Everybody knows that around, and chiefly at the base of, the stiff bill which 
adorns the anterior part of the head of all sparrows there are rudiments of feathers, 
which are, perhaps, more ornamental than useful, though naturalists cannot say that 
they are altogether without utility. Ihave just said that they are rudiments of fea- 
thers, because, in fact, of ordinary bird-coverings they have the ribs only, and the 
bright appendages on either side of the middle rib are totally wanting. These adjuncts 
to the sparrow’s bill could be called bristles ‘rather than feathers; but we prefer en- 
tirely to discard that word as manifestly unworthy the young hero of whom we now 
speak. But he shared in great part in the misfortune of Samson Agonistes. In one 
of the fiercest engagements of the late war an infuriated Twit-Twat, under the influence 
of intense rage, had pounced upon young Mr. Native, and, holding him firmly on the 
ground under both his claws, had furiously pecked at these appendages of his enemy, 
and had made a clean sweep of them all. And as young Twit-Twat had, in his hate, 
extracted the very roots of these bill-ornaments, they could not be renewed, and for all 
his life the unfortunate young native was destined to have his name written on his face. 
For this simple reason I repeat again that I could easily distinguish him from a thou- 


sand others. ° 
When his nest was finally constructed several days passed, as usual for all birds, 
before his hen began to deposit her eggs and hatch them. During this short period of 


idleness he .had nothing better to do than to examine his surroundings and become 
62 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 63 


acquainted by sight with everything of note in his neighborhood. He then became 
sorrowfully aware that there were more enemies than friends in his present locality. 
There was, however, a great exception, since his tree was not far distant from the one 
which contained the patriarchs’ cottage, and he knew that his very father lived in one 
of the two cells. I do not know if there was still some filial piety lingering in his 
heart, of which he had not certainly given any proof for a very long time; but what- 
ever may have been his motive, he one day flew away from the top of his poplar, and 
alighted just on the platform where at that very moment old Mr. Native was resting 
alone, for his sweet companion was bent with age and at that time was sick in the inte- 
rior of her own cell. 

When the young bird came into the presence of his ancient sire he seemed respect- 
ful enough, so far as a studied reserve can be called ‘‘respect.’’? Still, the venerable 
patriarch did not appear to trust him completely, and, making one or two steps in ad- 
vance as a kind of trial, he seemed to say: ‘‘I am here a hermit for you ; what news 
do you bring me of the family?’’ The young bird did not appear insulted at that 
kind of reproach. He even modestly withdrew from before the steps of his advancing 
father ; and, both showing themselves more reconciled, they flew up a short distance 
without leaving the tree, and rested on two different branches, very near each other, yet 
demurely keeping their distance. They did not at first change their position, nor did 
they become familiar enough to perch on the same twig and gently peck at each other, 
as sparrows generally do. Thus they stood facing each other for about a quarter of an 
hour; and I confess it would have been particularly interesting to me to know what 
they said to each other. I have scarcely any doubt that animals often understand 
each other and have a peculiar way of speaking without uttering a word, for they can- 
not have an articulate language; that seems naturally to follow the possession of 
reason. 

At the end of the conversation there appeared to be afar greater degree of good 
feeling, and they hopped alternately from one branch to another in evident play, as if 
they were on terms of familiarity such as I had not witnessed among them for a very 

_long time indeed. 

There might not have been very serious consequences for the Twit-Twats from this 
first interview between Sather and son had the new-born intimacy been limited to that 
single pair; but the other native birds of the neighborhood, particularly those who 
were at the time engaged in building their nests, had remarked it, and soon we shall 
have to record the first growling of another storm more pregnant with evil to the native 
race than the first one, and which will keep the poor Twit-Twats likewise in hot water . 
until their final triumph, unfortunately delayed by the turbulence of their enemies. 

The native crew, emboldened by the example of their scarred young leader, came 
one after another to have a look at their patriarch. He received them with a cautious 

demeanor, but did not drive them away. They gradually grew more familiar and 
arrived in greater number, so as to cover the little platform, and even some of the 


64 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


branches around the bird-cottage. What they said, or whether they said anything, I 
cannot positively tell, for there was always some boisterousness in their manner which 
prevented me from paying great attention to their speaking organs. But, unless it was 
the effect of prejudice on my part, I never could detect the same familiarity of inter- 
course between the native brood and their old sire which always appeared whenever 
some of the Twit-Twat progeny came into the presence of their old general and his 
Amazon. The natives invariably showed a harshness of disposition akin to positive 
animosity ; and although the gloomy and violent young birds seemed in a sort of con- 
straint and awe when in the presence of their ancient parent, although they went so far 
as to pay him a kind of deference—by getting out of his way, for instance, when the 
question was who should pass before the other—still the contrast between their con- 
duct and that of the young Twit-Twats in the same circumstances was so striking that 
I was sometimes tempted to suppose they belonged to radically different species of 
birds. 

Meanwhile the Twit-Twats swarming about had observed with suspicion these 
strange doings, and began to fear for the consequences of such a bold step on the part 
of their adversaries. They did not, however, show any disposition to fight, but, with a 
ereat deal of cunning, they evidently formed the counter project of improvising a pub- 
lic demonstration on their side in honor of their chief, as a set-off to that of the oppo- 
site quarter. They came, therefore, in crowds; for they now enjoyed, particularly in 
and around the Lombardy poplars, great superiority of number over their enemies. 
Still, they did not seem to come for the purpose of provoking a quarrel, but only in 
order to gladden the heart of their old parent by the sight of their frisky gambols. 
They hopped, skipped, and flew with perfect freedom, without minding in the least the 
invading natives. They seemed to know that they belonged to the household of old 
General Twit-Twat, or rather that his dwelling was the homestead of the whole family. 
They were friendly, gentle, attentive chiefly to the head of their sept ; and I have seen 
on this occasion worms which they had brought in their little bills for feeding their 
young fall accidentally, as it were, in the way of the old bird, so that that dainty food 
could become his easy prey. It was delightful to contemplate the familiar relations 
they showed between father and sons. Particularly the sweet contrast between the 
amiable agility and rapidity of movement of youth on one side, and the graceful se- 
dateness and natural gentleness of ripe age on the other, would have been, in my opin- 
ion, a most lovely subject for the brush of the painter or the fancy of the poet. 

But the sight of this paradisiacal happiness could not but produce the most bitter 
.and jealous feelings in the natives’ hearts. I am confident that if their number had 
not been so inconsiderable war would have begun from this moment. They had to 
withdraw on account of being only a handful; and they appeared to do it modestly 
and naturally. But for ever after, whenever the natives came back to play the syco- 
phants before their worthy chieftain, if there happened to be then only a few Twit- 
Twats around the cottage they immediately showed their deep hatred by their attitude, 


THE TWIT-TWATS. . 65 


their gestures, their screams, and by the bristling of their feathers. They seemed to 
feel that they had finally found a leader. 

There were even slight skirmishes now and then between the two camps, amount- 
ing almost to a declaration of hostility. On one occasion two natives were severely 
punished, and on another a poor Twit-Twat went away bleeding from the field. The 
two old patriarchs, however, both Twit-Twat and native, tried their best to allay the 
storm whenever it began to brew ; for the reader knows that these two noble birds, at 
least, were inaccessible to petulance, rashness, and animosity, and that, had they been 
alone, peace would have continued to flourish, as it was meet and proper it should do, 
around the church and parsonage. 

Besides the personal efforts of both chieftains, the breeding-time, now at its height, 
was likewise a great obstacle to war and strife. For we are now in April—-pretty far 
down in the month—and each pair of birds has not only a nest, but a little offspring to 
protect and feed. And as to the care for their young I never could detect the smallest 
difference between Ameriéan and Irish birds. The feeling of paternity, and chiefly ma- 
ternity, is equal. It constantly asserts its power over the most ferocious natures as well 
as over the most gentle. Yes, let it be said in acknowledgment of the supreme rule of 
love which has been imposed by the Almighty Creator on all His works, vultures and 
eagles are as careful of their young and attentive to their wants as doves, even, or hum- 
ming-birds can be. The cuckoo is the only one among birds who leaves his progeny to 
be fed by another ; and on this account alone, if my personal opinion could have any 
weight among ornithologists, I should severely exclude the unfeeling fellow from a 
place in the gentle class of winged creatures, though his coo-cooing is so very pleasant 
in May. 

- Consequently, open war could not as yet break out among the sparrows in the 
Twit-Twat empire. Its fury was to be delayed until the end of the breeding-season, and 
even until the return of both clans from their rustication in summer. But directly 
after that epoch a state of affairs must inevitably prevail such as it has not yet been my 
sad duty to describe. For the seeds of contention were laid deep during the whole 
spring and summer which form the subject-matter of the actual part of our story. 
Meanwhile the sparrow species was multiplying to an enormous extent; and this re- 
quires a moment’s attention, because an understanding of it will render possible to per- 
ceive the awful import of the final catastrophe. 

Let the reader ponder over this simple, cool, and statistical statement: Each spar- 
TOW couple, in the course of a single summer, begets four and sometimes five broods, 
each one containing from four to six chicks. This, at least, is the result of my personal 
observation ; and I give it without reference to what any book of natural history may 
say. With these simple data before you, calculate what will be the numbers of the 
two armies on their return from the usual rwstication—say by the end of September. 
In reading the narrative of the previous winter’s battles you have, perhaps, been sur- 
prised that so many birds could have come from two couples. Your astonishment will 


ANNU 


SAOSS 


iN 


Hil 


Wonderful Increase among Sparrows. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 67 


be still greater when you see military operations carried on by solid troops twenty or 
twenty-five times larger again. For mark it well, all active Twit-Twats and natives are 
now very busy increasing their numbers in what is called a more than geometrical 
ratio. You know what this means, if you have ever got far along in arithmetic. 
Should you have neglected it in your childhood the importance of the present sub- 
ject requires that you should take it up at once, if possible, even at this late period 
of your life. In the meantime I shall leave you buried in that interesting occupa- 
tion. j 

But no, wait a moment. I have been somewhat inexact in saying that all the 
sparrow couples were obeying a great law of their nature and following God’s com- 
mand to increase and multiply. There were two pairs which had absolutely nothing 
to do, except to keep the general peace and see to the interests of order. These were 
no others than the old patriarchs of both races. No new progeny was ever to issue 
forth from the two contiguous cells of their cottage. In their old age they were not to 
be troubled with the care of feeding successively during the summer twenty or twenty- 
five voracious mouths, such as you must often have seen if you have looked at birds’ 
nests containing the young ones. If you wish to have a better idea of this trouble of the 
birds than you have probably ever had before, procure a nest of unfledged woodpeckers, 
as fell once to my lot, and try to feed them yourself. Only in this way will you be able 
to judge. The venerable sires of all our sparrows were to be at last exempt from that 
labor, and would have to feed themselves only. Consequently, for the sake of perfect 
exactness, I advise you, in the arithmetical calculation which I have suggested, not to 
include these two noble pairs, which must, however, continue to remain the most con- 
spicuous actors on our stage until the end of the story. 

This chapter in its entirety is devoted to the illustration of the unfortunate posi- 
tion in which immigrants to this country, especially Catholics, find themselves on 
many occasions. They can scarcely escape contention, and, though they may be per- 
fectly innocent of giving any cause of quarrel, the strife will nevertheless be attributed 
to them. This is chiefly owing to those un-American factions which occasionally arise 
under the pretext of protecting natives against foreigners. These factions are called 
here un-American because their scope is entirely opposed to the genuine spirit of this 
republic. All its citizens enjoy equal rights under the Constitution, and to make an- 
tagonistic classes of them is to go counter to the spirit of true Americanism. All in 
this country have been originally foreigners, and if some of its citizens are happy 
enough to have for a long time enjoyed its privileges, those who have but lately arrived 
know that their children and grandchildren will be in the same position ; and mean- 
while, as soon as they have fulfilled all the conditions imposed by the naturalization 
laws, they have a right to claim and enjoy the advantages of full citizenship. 

But what is chiefly intended in this chapter is to describe a large number of warm- 
hearted Americans who, born in this country and knowing that the residence of their 
family on these shores dates from early colonial times, still not only refuse to espouse 


68 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


the native cause aS proposed by newly-organized native factions, but show themselves 
friends and supporters of those who are unjustly called foreigners and aliens even after 
they have honestly fulfilled all the provisions of the law with regard to citizenship. 

In this chapter, it is true, this class of fair-minded—nay, generous—men is repre- 
sented by one single pair of patriarchs only among the birds, but this noble pair are 
the representatives of a class very numerous in this country. Every one of us, I am 
sure, is acquainted with many such, and I could relate stories without. end showing 
that the American people are in general not only fair-ininded and warm-hearted, as I 
called them, but ready at all times to help by their efforts and their means the poorest 
immigrant, landed only yesterday at Castle Garden, who falls casually in their way. . 

These are the true natives of this country, and they alone know and appreciate 
the true spirit of its institutions. And these brief hints will show how well connected 
is the web of our tale, which it is time to resume. 


CHAPTER X. 


THE SPARROWS’ RUSTICATION ENDED BY AN EVENTFUL CATASTROPHE—RETURN OF 
THE BIRDS. 


| HE summer had come and was already far on towards its end. It had 
begun gloriously with its warm winds, its fertilizing showers, and with 
Nd {| the brilliant expansion of nature which invariably follows in its wake. 
Scrdom OSU Long and genial days, bright and dewy nights, swarms of shining and 
odd-shaped insects, a green mantle spread over the earth, garlands of 
leaves and blossoms waving over trees and shrubs—all this and more had 
brought about a magic change. Under the life-inspiring breath of God 
1 beauty and splendor had replaced dreariness and desolation. ‘ 

The sparrows were most of the time hidden under a rich canopy of boughs; the 
poplars were, in fact, green pyramids of moving velvet, gracefully rocking at the 
slightest breath of air. But you could hear the twittering of the birds and see them 
suddenly emerging from under the ample folds of bright draperies as they flew after 
one another, dancing, as it were, in circles around the tall and slender trees. 

The unshapely objects which you could have seen during winter from my window 
—the trunks, the limbs, the old stumps, the twigs even and branchlets—were no longer 
in view ; everything misshapen and distorted had been artfully concealed by the great 
Author of all beauty and gracefulness. But the little platform of the double sparrow- 
cottage so frequently mentioned was still in full view, and the ancient Twit-Twats, as 
well as their old native neighbors, often -graced it by their presence. They constantly 
came out and went in, but no young brood was ever seen to issue from either door. 
The old birds nevertheless seemed happy, and no doubt enjoyed themselves very much. 
They were oftentimes visited by the numerous young sparrows nestled all around— 
those from Irish quarters more lively and sociable than ever, the others apparently 
more courteous and respectful toward the patriarch of their tribe, thongh they still 
kept up a grudge against the unoffending Twit-Twats. This, it has been seen, occa- 
sionally broke out in squabbles, and during the whole summer there were now and 
then hostile engagements, which nevertheless did not bring on a state of open war. 
Altogether it appeared as if affairs went on very much as they have done with birds 
since the beginning of creation. i 

The ancient male native appeared at times rather gloomy, and occasionally he 
69 


70 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


would stand motionless for more than a quarter of an hour on the little platform of his 
cottage, seemingly immersed in thought. On these occasions the younger bird with 
the remarkable scar, whom I had previously ascertained to be his first and oldest sur- 
viving offspring, would invariably perch near him, and the interview always produced 
a visible change for the better in the old bird. 

These were the chief incidents of the summer. Autumn alone could bring about 
any remarkable change in the situation. Suddenly all the sparrows disappeared. 
Young and old, lately fledged birds of this summer as well as ancient stagers of eight 
or ten years, all took their flight without having given any previous notice, as if they 
had agreed among themselves to abandon this part of the country and go no one knew 
whither. 

I have studied sparrowdom from my early youth, and very long ago, in the Old 
World, I had remarked that after the usual summer increase the families formed in 
large groups and went rambling together for several weeks ; but I had never before 
been so forcibly struck by this curious phenomenon, and the circumstances attending 
it now were so strange that at first I thought the birds had gone for good and would 
never return. 

For it was not a migration to a milder climate—something the sparrows never need, 
since they are the only birds in this country which can stand our severe northern 
winters. Besides, even had this been their object it was still too early, as it was only 
the end of August and the weather was oppressively hot. They could not have been 
in need of a warmer country. Besides, they had taken none of the precautions which 
birds generally take when migrating at the beginning of winter—that is, they had not 
appointed leaders and watchmen over their flight, as ducks, geese, and starlings do; 
they had not started together in good order and with any foresight against possible 
danger: they had simply dispersed and disappeared. It was very strange. As it was 
during daylight that it happened, I witnessed it all, and it was something I could not 
understand. 

Would my birds ever return? That was the question. Three years before in 
another locality I had seen other sparrows depart and return; and in order to treat 
the subject scientifically, as is ever my wont, I must give the details of that other re- 
markable story, which appeared to me to differ a great deal from the present one. I 
was then taking care of a congregation in Jersey City, on the celebrated Heights, not 
far from Bergen, and very near what is called Palisade Avenue. The church was 
large, built of stone, but not finished. The masons had not yet filled the holes which 
had been used for the scaffolding ; there were hundreds of these holes, which were all 
full of sparrows when I went to live there. The birds were certainly more nume- 
rous in that place than they ever were around me in Troy ; but I did not take so deep 
an interest in them, for I did not know their genealogy, and could not possibly have 
known it. There was in Jersey City no Irish Murrogh O’ Murphy to acquaint me with 
the previous history of the broods, and consequently I did not give so much attention 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 71 


to the little fellows that hopped, skipped, and flew around St. Joseph’s Church in 
what was then called Hudson City. There were, however, birds enough, and I could 
not escape the infliction of their screams and the pleasurable sight of their gambols. 

This lasted a good part of the summer, and in August they also went away in the 
unceremonious manner of my Trojans. Iwas told that it was usual with them to go 
off in this manner in August, and that they would return in September; they had , 
merely gone into the country to enjoy themselves for a short time. And, in fact, be- 
fore the last day of September they were all in their holes again. I began to have a 
faint notion that they had been rusticating, and this gave an additional interest to my 
subsequent studies of the subject. 

But in Troy, when I enquired after their departure nobody could tell me as much 
about the matter as I knew myself. A circumstance which I learned afterwards ex- 
plained the exact knowledge of the Jersey people and the complete ignorance of the 
Trojans. The first had, as was seen, received the sparrows from Europe long before 
New York, and in Hudson City they had already seen them at work for nearly ten 
years, and knew a great deal about their habits. The reader is aware that in South 
Troy the facts above related happened the year of the sparrows’ first arrival, so that 
the ignorance of the people of Troy was perfectly excusable. 

But I was somewhat perplexed. So far I had been highly favored in my studies 
concerning the sparrows’ habits; but now, when everything appeared propitious, an 
unexpected turn had suddenly brought my studies to a close. Every circumstance of 
their flight seemed to indicate that they had gone for good—not only the reasons given 
a moment ago, derived from the want of order and preparation in the whole affair, but 
chiefly the terrible fights which had rendered the previous winter so disastrous for 
many of them. I myself had foreseen and feared it, and it is well known that birds of 
all classes are better able than man to foresee whatever is in store for them. Virgil has 
given strong proofs of it with regard to the Italian birds, particularly with regard to 
His Majesty the Woodpecker, a great prophet, according to the poet. 

The thing was too important to be neglected. This period of the year, it is well 
known, is one of almost total leisure for clergymen. Many think they can absent 
themselves from their parishes and recruit, as they say, during a good part of a month, 
at the very least, provided provision is made that the sick are not left to die without 
the consolations of religion. I would not personally have dared, without good reasons 
and the usual authorization, to take so much liberty in a matter where conscience is so 
nearly concerned. But I could certainly roam at large within the precincts of my 
parish, and, since relaxation is necessary and at that season allowable, I thought the 
best relaxation for me would be to decide the most interesting and momentous ques- 
tion, What had become of my sparrows ? 

The first thing I did was to cross over from the rectory to Jackson Street, the next 
block south, and then, walking through Trenton Street along near the sisters’ pre- 
mises, I soon came in front of a dreary-looking quarry of blue-stone, over which I had 


ste ye. 


72 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


often been obliged to climb, owing to the indentations in the rock made by the quarry- 
men. Then over the hill and through brushwood and stumps of cedar-trees I could 
push up until I reached the top. It was such a journey as Jonathan, the friend of 
young David, made when, accompanied by his armor-bearer only, ‘‘ he sought to go ~ 
over to the garrison of the Philistines, rocks standing up on both sides, and steep cliffs 
like zee¢h on one side and on the other”’ (1 Kings xiv. 4). This passage of Holy Scrip- 
ture is a perfect description of the quarry situated at the east end of Trenton Street in 
Troy. All the Trojans know the place and can vouch for it. But I was on that day 
more peacefully inclined than Jonathan, and was merely looking for sparrows. 

I soon found a great number of them. Some fields at a short distance had been 
sown with buckwheat, and, sure enough, here were birds very busy in the midst of the 
abundance of good things. But I could discover neither Twit-Twats nor any of my 
native birds among them, and my whole afternoon’s labor was perfectly in vain. I 
wandered over that elevated plateau as far east as the poorhouse, and very far indeed 
south along the renowned Greenbush road, which does not, it must be said, lead you 
through green bushes. On all sides I saw sparrows feeding on the various kinds of 
seeds socommon in autumn. But my pets were not to be seen, and if they had been 
in that neighborhood the reader knows I should easily have distinguished them from 
any other birds. I had, therefore, to return home somewhat tired and put out. Still, 
my rambles had convinced me that my poor friends were not altogether lost. It was 
evidently a custom of the race to leave their city habitations in the fall and take to the 
country for a while, for the sake of feeding better, as all my observations that day had 
given me the ocular demonstration. 

After seriously reflecting for nearly half a week on the most probable places whi- 
ther both Twit-Twats and natives could have gone, I thought of examining a locality 
very different from the previous one, and which enjoys many advantages over it. It is 
an extensive district just north of the one I had explored, and which, in fact, is the 
delightful little valley watered by the celebrated Poestenkill Creek in its upper course. 
A short description of its lower basin has been given at the very beginning of this 
story. A more complete one is in order here, because my efforts in that direction were 
to be successful. 

The Poestenkill—this is, it seems, its Indian name, preserved to posterity by the 
Dutch when they settled in Rensselaer County—runs irregularly from east to west 
through a hilly district which appears to be a spur of the Heidelberg Mountains. 
In winter the creek is a foaming torrent, interrupted here and there by cascades and 
rapids. Though when its bed is full it may be called a river, I should not advise a 
steamboat captain, however bold and skilful, to attempt to navigate it with a cargo of 
even the toughest goods. But its banks are often picturesque and diversified so as to 
lend an enchantment to the landscape. Some of the wealthiest citizens of Troy had for 
this reason thought of building their residences in the neighborhood, and thus the cele- 
brated Pawling Avenue had been laid out on the map of the city, though the ground 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 73 


was, in fact, without the limits of the city. At the east end of the projected avenue 
there happens to be a small village, or rather hamlet, whose vicinity is the picture of 
loveliness and rural bliss, chiefly on account of the diminutive Poestenkill, which is 
there as placid as a lake and in many places runs along under a perfect bower of wil- 
low-trees. As I had already several times visited this locality to carry the blessings of 
religion to some sick Christian of my parish, I said to myself that if my birds had 
established their temporary quarters in that neighborhood the rogues had fallen upon 
a paradise, for at a very short distance from the avenue and the village the country 
almost deserves that name. The village is called Albia. 

I set out, therefore, very early, taking with me the materials of a lunch, as I 
wished to enjoy the pleasure of a solitary picnic at least, in case this ramble should not 
be more successful than had been the first. It was at the end of August and the wea- 
ther was lovely ; an abundant rain a few days previously had cooled the atmosphere 
and refreshed the trees and the underbrush, renewing their green lustre as if it had 
been only the end of June. 

Along Pawling Avenue I saw very few sparrows. There are in that direction too 
many houses, and the birds had deserted the neighborhood almost as completely as our 
own in South Troy. 

But as soon as I had passed the village of Albia I was again in the midst of spar- 
rowdom, and the further I advanced into the interior of this unfrequented territory the 
more the sparrow population seemed to increase. None, however, of those I was look- 
ing for had yet fallen under my eyes. 

I made up my mind to eat my lunch as soon as I should finda perfectly secluded 
spot where no urchin could see me and no harvester could guess my object. For there 
were here and there harvesters in the fields and boys along the creek, and the common 
opinion is that no one eats in the fields but a—tramp. 

At last I espied a shadowy lane of willow-trees, as regular as if it had been planted 
by the hand of man. These trees skirted a most lovely bank of the miniature river ; 
and, exactly as if my personal comfort had been studied in detail by an attentive pur- 
veyor, a clean rock covered with moss and lichen offered mea seat so conveniently 
placed that I could with one hand feed the minnows in the stream and with the other 
throw the remaining crumbs to the sparrows under the willcow-trees. 

I do not like to eat alone; but if 1 cannot have a human being with me at table I 
like to have on one side a small aguarium with goldfish and on the other a cage or two 
of canary birds. That simple pleasure God had offered me in that solitude where I 
was going to take my lunch. I began in earnest, for I was hungry ; but I did not for- 
get to scatter in profusion the gifts of Ceres, as a pagan would have said—the phe- 
nomenal elements of wheat, which often become the veil of a hidden Saviour, as a 
Christian prefers to express it. 

The meal’ was already more than half finished ; troops of minnows were cane 
munching at the bread spread on the water, and as large a number of sparrows were 


74 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


hurriedly coming down from the willow-trees in the near neighborhood of the rock 
where I was seated, when, lo and behold! old General Twit-Twat himself rushed 
through the crowd and alighted just at my feet. I was indeed a happy man! But the . 
good fellow was not alone of his tribe. All his progeny followed in his wake, of course 
after his Amazon, and the numerous army extended as far as the end of the lane formed 
by the willow-trees. 

Strange to say, I soon found out that the native rascals had chosen the same camp- 
ing-ground. It was impossible to conjecture if there had been fights among the two 
parties during this time of summering. But it was evident that the former estrange- 
ment between them around the poplar-trees in South Troy was continued here on the 
banks of the Poestenkill at the farther end of Pawling Avenue. The natives did not 
come near me, probably, I first thought, on account of the large number of Twit-Twats 
by which I was surrounded. The question, however, which I came to investigate was 
now clear tomy mind. The sparrows would go back to South Troy; they were resid- 
ing temporarily only in their new district, where they had no nests and no holes for the 
winter, and scarcely any means of constructing new ones. But before returning home 
I determined to study, during a part of the afternoon, their way of living when out 
of their usual haunts during August and September. These precious observations can 
be compressed in a few pregnant paragraphs. 

That it was a real rustication, on the exact model of the one indulged during the 
same months by our fashionable gentlemen and ladies, can be proved by all the chief 
details of both. ; 

First, it is for both a season of bathing and drinking waters—with the remark, 
however, that it is done by the sparrows in amore natural, primitive, and sensible 
manner. As soon as they had finished their simple meal around me they all flew to 
the banks of the lovely Poestenkill. Wherever there was a little pool of clear, lucid 
water at the edge of the stream they jumped into it, two, three, or four together, and 
there was such a splashing, such an innocent tussle among them as it was a pleasure 
to see. It was easy to understand that the great object was ablution—that is, to clean 
themselves thoroughly, and to clear away from their wings, tails, and feathers gene- 
rally all dust and unseemly taint which might mar their natural beauty. But to- 
gether with that they wished to amuse themselves ; and with what a grace they did it! 
How clumsy in comparison is the ducking of two rustic swains who also pretend to 
develop their muscular strength and give a show of their agility in swimming! Go 
and look at the sparrows when they bathe, and say which you prefer. 

And bathing was not then their only occupation, for they drank too. Have you 
ever remarked with what stateliness, demureness little birds drink? Their body does 
not move, but their little head goes up and down with almost the regularity of clock- 
work ; and their little necks—how they are stretched! how gracefully they bend first 
and assume a perpendicular position afterwards! and their bright eyes seem to show 
that they relish that innocent degustation. After having observed it a thousand times 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 75 


I have no doubt that they find in the different kinds of waters as many tastes as the 
most fastidious wine-bibber thinks he discovers in his claret or Delaware. 

Think you, gentle reader, that fashionable people who go to Saratoga in order to 
drink the waters find as pleasurable a sensation in swallowing their three glasses of 
Congress as my little pets experienced along the banks of the Poestenkill? -For my 
own part I cannot believe it. 

Secondly, both human beings and birds enjoy their dances—or their hops, as they 
say at Saratoga—during rustication-time. Let us examine for a moment the lively 
dances of the sparrows. They have first the @wet, in which they are but two, and in 
which they use their feet only. Everybody has seen this, but few indeed have paid 
attention to it. Two sparrows, flying rapidly from two distant parts of the common 
field, perch on two neighboring twigs of the same tree. At once the duet begins. It 
consists merely in changing places; but the operation is often very rapid and must be 
extremely healthy and reinvigorating. It is so natural in them that, when they are 
infamously reduced to slavery by unfeeling man and are incarcerated two in a single 
cage, they set at it sometimes for a good part of the forenoon. There is still a worse 
situation for the poor birds, and this is the total isolation to which they are con- 
demned when unjust and cruel man sentences one of them to solitary confinement. 
The lonely prisoner continues to hop as if he had a companion. I can assure my read- 
er that in absolute freedom, particularly during rustication, they frequently enjoy the 
duet among themselves ; and I saw a great many pairs dancing in this manner in the 
willow-trees along the Poestenkill Creek. 

As it would be tedious to describe all their motions when these are regulated by 
the terpsichorean art (in which they succeed much better than men do at Long Branch), 
we shall select as an instance the grand aerial dance, for which several trees at least 
are required in close contiguity. The sparrows join in it by a dozen at a time, and they 
use their wings rather than their feet for it, so that men cannot possibly rival them in 
this dance. It succeeds admirably when, as I have often seen from my windows in 
South Troy, they have poplar-trees at their disposal. These graceful plants, as every- 
body knows, are tall, slender, and regular in form from bottom to top. If planted ina 
row, with an interval of eight or ten inches between the foliage of each, they are well 
suited for this frolicsome exercise. The birds begin at one end of the row of trees, fol- 
lowing each other closely. They issue forth in great glee from behind the first tree, 
twittering and dancing as they go; then flying rapidly, and passing between the second 
and third poplars, they disappear for a moment behind the foliage, and come out again 
in the same order between the two next trees. Thus they go on until the last tree is 
reached, when they begin again in an inverse order. The great object of each seems to 
be to overreach the bird that precedes, and take its place in the dance. I have no 
doubt that if the bird that comes out the last at parting could be the first to arrive at 
the last poplar, he would acquire great renown among his country-people, and—who 
knows ?—in one of their secret meetings he might receive a crown of blossoms of 


76 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


Sorget-me-nots, as the winner at the races of Olympia in Greece received a crown 
of laurel. ‘ 

Thirdly and lastly, the gentlemen and ladies who spend a month or two in summer 
at any of our spas—Saratoga, or Long Branch, or Cape May—intend to rest from their 
labors and recruit for the next ten months of commercial or industrial speculation. 
This rest they find not merely in drinking and bathing and dancing, but principally, 
perhaps, in reading sensational novels, of which they usually have a large valise full. 
In this, I acknowledge, men have an advantage over sparrows. I am not, however, 
without hope that with the rapid headway that progress is going on in this century the 
time shall come when man will not be the only being in animated nature having the abi- 
lity toread. In that case it cannot be doubted that birds, and sparrows in particular, 
which are among the most intelligent of vertebrals (see Webster), will share in all the 
advantages of the reading gift. Mr. Darwin’s ingenious theories give us the hope that 
this happy consummation of the evolutionary process will not be too long delayed. A 
very forcible writer in the Worth American Review for 1873 remarks, with a profound 
acumen, that ‘“‘there is more difficulty for a Simoid ape, armed only with a stone, to 
progress so far as to make a hatchet of the stone than for the same interesting animal, 
armed now with its hatchet, to invent the whole of chemistry, not to speak of mental 
philosophy.’’ But the same Simoid ape has already progressed so far as to make a 
hatchet of a stone; therefore, etc. 

To apply this remarkable syllogism to the case of the Twit-Twats and natives, we 
may say, likewise, that it was more difficult for sparrows, living at first without head- 
covering under the canopy of heaven, to znvent the comfortable habit of sleeping in a 
cottage than it is for the same birds, now on the open road to civilization, to create for 
themselves all the arts of man, including his literature. 

After this long disquisition the reader will readily acknowledge that there is every 
year a time of rustication for sparrows, and I can now proceed with my narrative. 

My business being accomplished with every possible feeling of satisfaction, I pre- 
pared to return home. I could no longer be afraid of meeting with harvesters or 
urchins, for I had disposed of all the materials for my lunch; and even in case I should 
think proper to stop on my way and stretch myself on the grass under a tree, there 
would be no possibility of mistaking me for a wretched ¢ramp hurriedly partaking of a 
stolen dinner. All fear as to my respectability was consequently banished from my mind, 
and, after having concluded my ornithological exploration, I walked along leisurely. 

Soon I perceived a crowd of boys coming directly towards me, and I had no mo- 
tive for endeavoring to avoid them. I counted as many as ten of them, and they ap- 
peared to be discussing among themselves a very serious affair. As soon as they came 
within a hailing distance, ‘‘ Well, my dear boys,”’ said I to them, ‘‘ what is the matter 4 
I hope no great accident has happened you.” ‘‘No accident to any of us,’’ replied 
one of them, ‘‘but asad one for a small bird that we haye just found under a tree, 
and we cannot agree among ourselves how its carcass came there.”’ 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 17 


These few words interested me, as there was question of a bird, although a dead 
one. I asked: ‘‘Can you show me its carcass? I may find out the cause of its 
death.” 

‘“‘ Here it is,’’ said the same boy, who had it all the time in his hand, and to my 
great surprise he gave me areal defunct sparrow. Looking at it more attentively, I 
became convinced that it was the dear old native patriarch that had so often delighted 
my eyes when he occupied the bird-cottage under my window, and whom I had not seen 
in that day’s ramble. It is true, the body was completely emaciated ; death had made 
a great change in him ; but the form of his bill, the color of his feathers, the whole of 
his phiz, in fact, told me it was he / 

‘“‘ Well,” said I to the boys, ‘‘ what do you think was the cause of his death?” I 
considered a bird of that species almost as a reasonable being. 

“We cannot agree about it,’’ replied the boy. ‘It could not be a shot from a 
fowler’s gun, as there is no hole in the whole carcass. It was not wounded nor man- 
gled by its friends, the other sparrows, as there is no scar or hole in its body. It 
might have been killed by the wind and rain, or it might have starved to death. We 
disagree about that.” 

‘‘ Well, my friends,”’ said I, ‘‘ you are wide of the mark in all your conjectures. 
I knew the bird, and he must have died either of apoplexy or of gastritis ; besides all 
this, he had pretty well run oe the whole span of his life, since he-must have en- 
joyed at least a decade of years— 

Here I remarked that I was using a language tick might be as hard as Hebrew 
for the poor boys. 

“<All I can say,’ I added in conclusion, ‘‘is that he must have died a natural 
death. Let me have him.’ And instead of the sparrow I handed their spokesman a 
bright quarter of a dollar. There was enough to furnish plenty of candy for the whole 
troop, and they all departed with joy. 

Left alone with the body of my old friend, I began to muse over what must have 
happened, and also over the future consequences of so sad a catastrophe. The more I 
looked at him the more I was convinced that I was right in the conjectures I had ex- 
pressed to the boys. The emaciation of the poor old patriarch might have been caused 
by a protracted disease of the stomach, and gastritis would have been the natural 
result ; or old age might have caused the induration of the vascular system around the 
heart, and then the biood, instead of coursing through his veins, would have rushed to 
the cerebrum and produced apoplery. I was right as to science, but wrong in the cir- 
cumstances in which I displayed my knowledge. The boys could not understand a 
word of it. 

But what affected me most painfully was the foresight of what would hencefor- 
ward happen. Old Mr. Native was the only one who could keep his contumacious 
progeny in a somewhat peaceful state of mind. He alone could prevent them from 
breaking constantly out into open war. It was even with great difficulty that he kept 


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Final Victory of the Twit-Twats. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 79 


them within certain bounds. What would happen when both Twit-Twats and natives 
should return to their former quarters? The gentle mate of the patriarch would be 
altogether unable to grapple with the difficulty after the death of her spouse. 

It was very likely that the standing aloof of the whole native camp which I had 
remarked that very day in the peaceful region of the Upper Poestenkill came more 
from the recent death of their chief than from any former feeling of antipathy for the 
Twit-Twats. They already felt that they were left to their own uncertain guidance, 
and they may have been even then arranging their plans of conflict and open war, per- 
haps under the new young leader. 

These were the sorrowful thoughts which accompanied me as far as South Troy, 
and I need not assure the reader that, once arrived, I gave a decent burial to my friend 
at the foot of his own poplar-tree, and waited anxiously for the next month, which was 
to bring back the wanderers. They arrived at the end of September. They evidently 
followed the course of the Lower Poestenkill and of the Hollow Road, which below the 
Falls are quite near to each other. 

Soon all the trees around the church and the rectory swarmed with them ; they 
rested again on my window-sills; their shrill twitterings and their frisky gambols gave 
life again to the whole neighborhood, and I opened my eyes wide to see if ‘they would 
reoccupy their former dwellings without contention; for, as the reader knows, I ex- 
pected a fierce war. 

Fortunately, those who came first were all Twit-Twats. The old general was the 
first to appear, and it was proper on such an auspicious occasion that he should be at 
their head. He immediately occupied his ancient quarters in the bird-cottage. To 
complete my happiness, his mate was with him, and both seemed to have fairly recruit- 
ed during their absence, though they were undoubtedly getting old. The native side 
of the little bird-house remained empty for a short time, but with the rear-guard of 
the Twit-Twat troops the old female native patriarch came at last and took possession 
of her desolate quarters. We all know why she came alone, and that at this moment 
her-dead mate was already mouldering in his grave at the foot of the same tree. 

In my conversation with the boys who had found his corpse I briefly gave my con- 
jectures on the true causes of his demise ; but as this little volume is intended to convey 
all possible information on the natural history of sparrows, it is proper to say a word in 
general as to the way that their mortal course usually comes to an end. 

Naturalists experienced a great deal of trouble before they could find out how 
birds die, when their demise is not the result of violence. They pretend, it is true, that 
the greatest number of them meet their death in this last sudden manner. I am con- 
vinced that this is a mistake, at least in the case of the sparrows. Few perish. under 
the claws of the hawk; more are caught by, and become the victims of, the cruelty 
of boys; some expire of want or are killed outright by the pitiless storm; but with 
all this their multiplication is so rapid and their natural life so short that the im- 
mense majority of them must run through the full career allotted them by Providence, 


80 i THE TWIT-TWATS. 


and literally die of old age, since very few animals in the state of nature end their life 
through sickness. But the difficulty is to ascertain the various circumstances which 
accompany and follow their last day. Necropolises of birds have never been found 
except in Egypt, and in that ancient country their corpses were embalmed by foolish 
pagans who literally worshipped them ; they were not solemnly and piously interred 
by their kindred or friends. It is generally supposed, and in the main it must be true, 
that when they feel their end approaching they retire to some hole in the ground, or in 
an old wall, or in some rock difficult of access, and there gradually die away in soli- 
tude, without much suffering, it is true, but without any alleviating circumstance, as 
happens in the case of man, who usually expires surrounded by his friends, with all 
the help that charity and religion can afford. 


CHAPTER Xf. 


WAR AGAIN AND CONFUSION—FINAL SUCCESS OF THE TWIT-TWATS. 


ay HE native crew did not reappear in South Troy until all the Twit-Twats 
Fe had returned. They came in sufficiently good order, not too hastily, 
f and again took possession of all the places they had occupied previous to 
Per RNSE their rustication. This was fortunate, for no one could say what would 
have taken place had the two hostile nations arrived together. Such as 
it was, at the final coming of the natives it was evident that a revolution 
was imminent, as modern historians have often to say of human beings 
in our age. The absence of the venerable male native bird, whose aspect 
(\ alone used previously to keep his numerous broods in order, could not 
but produce within a short time a general change in the obstinate and ill- 
regulated native republic. The gentle mate of the old defunct bird, reduced to solitude 
in her part of the cottage, had no inclination, had she the power even, to assume the 
reins of government. Her neighbors, the old Twit-Twats, were in possession of their 
apartment ; but how long would they continue quiet in their quarters was something 
that remained to be seen. 


- Soon, indeed, the hostile intentions of the rascally colony were unmistakably 
manifested ; and the insolent crew was kept united by the unanimous desire of injur- 
ing those whom they called aliens and enemies. This was the first stage of the war, 
which must be briefly described. The native birds, although deprived of their former 
chieftain, and not seeming to feel inclined to elect another to place at their head—tfor 
instance, the bold fellow with the ugly scar, of whom a word was said before—had, 
nevertheless, at first a common aim which preserved them from gaunt anarchy. ‘The 
hatred of the Twit-Twats was their only guide ; but it was a fierce guide, which gave to 
each of them an enormous individual strength, and to their whole body very great 
power. Their main object evidently was to drive away their enemies, occupy their 
places, and afterwards destroy them if they could. 

They proceeded systematically in this intention; and though still without a com- 
mander, their instinctive fury took the place of one. First they meant to take posses- 
sion of the whole bird-cottage by evicting the noble Twit-Twat couple from it, as well 
as the forlorn female native. Whenever a single one of the three poor old birds ap- 


peared unaccompanied by any of their progeny or friends, it was immediately and 
81 


82 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


eagerly followed by two or three ferocious enemies, who evidently found a keen de- 
light in mocking, cruelly pecking, and pursuing without mercy. Hence even the re- 
pairing of the nests inside of the cottage was neglected ; there was scarcely time to col- 
lect food enough for sustenance. 

The constancy of these attacks proved to me that it was a system on the part of 
the young natives ; and it was done in such a manner, at such a distance from me, 
that I could not possibly help my dear little pets, and was reduced closely to examine 
all the vicissitudes of this barbarous war. 

After a great number of these individual contests the cunning crew grew bold 
enough to lay siege to the cottage itself—-not, it is true, in a regular way, ‘‘ by passages 
and advanced works which cover the besiegers from the enemy’s fire,” as they say in 
books on military engineering. The sparrows have not yet progressed far enough in 
civilization to reach that degree of military science. The Twit-Twats, besides, being 
settled all around, would probably not have allowed them to stand in arms for weeks 
and months together before this beloved fortress. The turbulent and scoundrelly pack 
evidently intended to carry it by stratagem, or rather by an assault. Five or six at a 
time, they often, as if peacefully inclined, alighted on the little platform of the bird- 
cottage, but always on the Twit-Twat side. They appeared to respect, for the time 
being, the last refuge of poor Mrs. Native, who had, however, no influence whatever 
over them. Their respect for her merely consisted in not noticing her movements, and 
leaving her temporarily unmolested in her side of the cottage. But they appeared 
very inquisitive as to the Twit-Twat quarters. They peeped into them, and looked im- 
pudently inside of the room, where the two old stagers, keeping quiet, were perhaps cow- 
ering in a corner with fear and trembling. This, nevertheless, was a mere conjecture of 
mine, as I could not have any ocular demonstration of what happened in the interior. 

On one occasion old General Twit-Twat took a noble revenge on the inquisitive fel- 
lows. Seeing them, from his recess, pressed, or rather jammed, up against the outside 
projection, he suddenly rushed out and brushed them all off with his wings, beak, and 
claws; and, having cleared the platform of their hateful presence, he evidently dared 
them to combat by his shrill twittering, his turning right and left with indignation and 
scorn, and chiefly by the tossing of his head, on which stood erect the large and rough 
red and black plumes that served the place of the waving horse-hair, the adornment 
of Achilles’ helmet. 

The native crew, discomfited for this once, watched for the moment when he should 
be out and only his Amazon remain inside. The moment came, and one of them dared 
not only to peep and look in, but even to enter. He came out, however, more quickly 
than he had gone in, and it is said that several of his feathers remained in the beak of 
the courageous female, who, as we all know, was not exactly a novice in the noble art 
of self-defence. 

These attacks, however, became at last so frequent, fierce, and positively annoying 
that the old couple, always fond of peace in spite of the names they bore, had to think 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 83 


of moving to more quiet quarters. They suddenly left empty their room in the cot- 
tage, which was immediately seized upon by their ferocious neighbors and emptied of 
all its contents in the shape of dry grass, hay, straw, paper, and nondescript odds and 
ends of every possible nature. 

Shortly after this the young native bird who had appeared the previous season so 
obsequious to his old sire (and who now evidently aspired to be the new leader of his 
tribe, though so far without success) grew colder and colder every day and more and 
more insolent to the forlorn female left alone in the cottage, though she was, as all 
knew, his fond parent. After various distressing scenes of insult and contumely the 
poor old bird also left her dwelling, and was ever after constantly seen in Twit-Twat 
company. She had been turned out of the society of her natural friends, and was duly 
adopted by those who originally were thought to be her enemies. 

The first object of the open war undertaken by the natives was now accomplished. 
They had the Twit-Twat fortress in their power, and could proceed to execute bolder 
and vaster designs. Their next purpose was, in fact, nothing less than to drive away 
from their neighborhood the whole race of sparrows opposed to them, and to destroy, as 
far as might be, the former prosperous Twit-Twat empire. 

This horrible project kept them more united than ever; and as their troops were 
very numerous, since the previous summer’s increase had made them a large army, they 
had a fair prospect of victory. The hostile camp, nevertheless, was also very large for 
the same reason—the statistics to prove it have been exact and conclusive ; and the Twit- 
Twats having a leader accomplished in every respect, the odds certainly were in their 
favor. I could never ascertain why the other party obstinately refused to acknowledge 
the claims of the young would-be leader. 

It would be extremely interesting to follow all the evolutions and manceuvres 
which soon began ; but as the first result of several heavy battles was unfavorable to 
the party of right, I beg to be excused from giving the detailed narrative. It would 
be too distressing to my feelings; and the reader must be content to know that by the 
end of October the Twit-Twat ranks were dispersed—they had withdrawn far beyond 
their former limits, and their empire of the previous year seemed to have melted into air. 

Their enemies were now masters of the entire field; no one appeared to oppose 
them, and they could boast of having succeeded in all their plans. Yet this was the 
great cause of their final overthrow. 

No longer having foreign competitors, being left besides to their own guidance and 
totally deprived of a chieftain, they had no unity of plan, for the hatred of the Twit- 
Twats, which had first united them, had disappeared with its object. They were totally 
abandoned to the fury of their growing passions, and their camp soon became a very 
bedlam of obstinacy and bad manners. They forgot the great principle which, as was 
seen, is the solid foundation of peace among sparrows—namely, the sacredness of pro- 
perty vested in those who have obtained possession of a home. Nowhere else have I 
ever seen birds molested by other sparrows in the quarters where they had fairly estab- 


84 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


lished themselves. But I could be surprised at no excess of that kind after their 
shameful conduct in and around the celebrated bird-cottage. We have just seen how 
they unjustly got possession of it, and it was the first breach of the fundamental rule 
among them. After this everything might be expected. 

Having once combined for such a purpose against the hated Twit-Twats, they each 
felt an irrepressible desire of satisfying their avidity by forcibly occupying the hole or 
the nest which might be the most convenient, even when this was in the lawful posses- 
sion of a brother native. Thus was the seed of a frightful anarchy scattered broad- 
cast through their extensive commonwealth. And as I never felt a strong inclination 
in favor of that brood, it was, I confess, without deep regret that I became the atten- 
tive witness of the numerous events which accompanied among them the usual process 
by which cities and republics are destroyed among men. 

It soon became an interesting study for me. For instance, in this very month of 
October a nest that had been built with more than usual care in the third poplar to the 
left of my window was eagerly occupied by an active native pair as soon as the Twit- 
Twats withdrew. After a full week of occupancy they could claim to be the lawful 
owners of it, according to sparrow jurisprudence. Still another pair, left as yet with- 
out a home, arrived, under my eyes, with the evident intention of evicting the ocecu- 
pants and forcibly seizing upon what did not belong to them. The contest was sharp, 
bloody, and decisive. I shall not describe the incidents of it, but, after a fight lasting 
half a day, the peaceful occupants were thrown out, and the unjust invaders ensconced 
themselves for the following night, without any apparent compunction or remorse, in a 
bed which they had not labored to make. Sic vos non vobis, etc. 

A much more distressing case of rapine was also witnessed by me. A native couple 
had evidently returned from rustication without being in the least recruited in health 
—nay, with all the signs of debility and helplessness. Having at an opportune mo- 
ment taken possession of a fine empty hole under the eaves of a small outside building 
which could be seen from one of the windows of the rectory, they thought themselves 
secure—the more so that their bad health would have been sufficient to excite the pity 
of the benevolent. Buta pugnacious pair of cowards, who would not have dared at- 
tack a couple of birds in sound condition, did not blush to peck at them and drive 
them off, probably to die under the canopy of heaven. 

I could quote hundreds of such cases, but I forbear and leave something to the 
reader’s imagination. Yet it is important to mention other causes of strife, for the sin- 
ful longing after other people’s property was far from being the only one. Jam con- 
vinced that among many of them there were deep feelings of animosity produced by 
months, and perhaps years, of personal contentions. I remarked particularly two of 
them who were evidently brooding over long memories of past wrongs. They often 
looked askance at one another, and seemed acted upon by deep reciprocal suspicions. 
The more remarkable of these two scamps was the very first-born of the old native 
patriarchs, whose scar has been already mentioned more than once, and who had for a 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 85 


long time aspired to be the leader of the tribe. The other was a far inferior bird in 
point of blood, but as bold and unprincipled as the first. From mere suspicion and 
mistrust they gradually gave each other strong proofs of mutual hatred, and, what was 
far worse, they influenced many birds who were already too much disposed to vent 
their anger on everybody and everything, so that I soon witnessed many scenes of riot 
and violence. Perhaps the unrecognized claims of Mr. Native, Jr., were at the bottom 
of the strife. 

The fierce contest between these two savage enemies became at last irrepressible, 
and it was soon followed by a universal commotion within the whole turbulent tribe. 
This commotion was very different from the conflict of the previous summer between 
natives and Twit-Twats. It was not a pitched battle of clan against clan, of the virtu- 
ous against the depraved; it was an internecine contest of rascally birds bent on 
nothing but mutual extermination. You could not see—as previously described—two 
well-defined armies, one fighting for right, the other for might. Might alone was now 
the universal aim among them ; and, as its object was different for each, nothing could 
be seen of that unity which had been the fatal cause of the success recorded at the be- 
ginning of this month of October. Hence, although they certainly formed groups of 
combatants, and seemed to have war-cries of their own which rallied a small number of 
aspirants to fame and honor, yet, on the whole, it was a medley, and it looked as if 
sparrow society was decomposed almost in its primitive elements. 

One remarkable day they gave me the awful spectacle of absolute anarchy, for 
they were all desperately contending, in complete disorder, with beaks, claws, wings— 
every weapon, in fact, that nature had given them. The dead and dying covered the 
ground ; and, frightful to.relate, those who had not yet given up the ghost, but were 
in the throes of agony, still fought as desperately as if they were not all engulfed in 
the same misery, and could still improve their individual condition by the total de- 
struction of the others. 

It was after a struggle of this kind, lasting the better part of a whole afternoon, 
that the two young desperadoes with the mention of whom this description began, 
being stripped of most of their feathers in the general engagement, fell furiously upon 
one another, uttering screams which might be taken for articulate threats of revenge 
and expressions of the deepest hatred. They fought one another to death, which they 
both met with all the horrible circumstances of an irrepressible and loathsome fury. 

This state of gaunt anarchy, as it has been called, had lasted several days when 
the Twit-Twats, who, since they had been driven off from the field, had completely dis- 
appeared, began to show themselves in twos and threes, all exhibiting signs of the 
greatest curiosity and interest. I knew not exactly whence they were coming back, 
having had no time to follow them into the interior of the country; th®ugh I hardly 
believe that in their flight they had retreated as far as their summer paradise on the 
banks of the Upper Poestenkill. They were likely ensconced in the shady ravines of 
what is called in Troy the Zollow Road, through which they had formerly returned 


g the Poestenkill and the Hollow Road. 


Return from Rustication alon 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 87 


from rustication. In their temporary retreat they had not fared very badly; they 
were apparently as jolly and sprightly as ever—in fact, sleek and in good condition. 
The first I saw surprised me by their agility and visible strength. I concluded that 
if the whole tribe had enjoyed as excellent quarters as these good fellows they could 
shortly show fight, and there might be fun before long. 

The first Twit-Twats, however, that arrived on their former grounds evidently did 
not carry their pretensions so far as immediately to engage in the fray and help their 
enemies to destroy each other. I soon perceived that they were merely scouts sent by 
the old general to reconnoitre, and that they must have received very strict orders not 
to display their fighting propensity. A few of them who were bold enough to rest on 
the sill of one of my windows clearly showed what they were about; they seemed to 
look very inquisitively only into the affairs of their sworn opponents, in order faithful- 
ly to report the true state of affairs. They looked as sharp as “‘ detectives,’ but no- 
thing more. Let the reader be persuaded that I was not rash in my conjectures. After 
frequent and protracted observations of these birds’ habits I am fully convinced that 
in front of their ‘‘armies”’ there are always ‘‘scouts,’’? and that when you see the keen 
explorers the solid troops are not far behind. 

In confirmation of this truth it is a positive fact that very shortly after the 
‘“‘scouts’’ had appeared the main ‘“‘army”’ came; and it was a glorious sight to enjoy, 
chiefly as my dear friend himself, the original patriarch, fresh and active still under his 
eleven summers, occupied his proud position at the head of a well-organized soldiery. 
The first view brought me the conviction that complete success was near and infallible. 
The natives, on account of their absolute disorganization, could not offer any resistance. 
They had no leader; and, besides, at that moment they thought only of fighting among 
themselves. They had, moreover, lost a great part of their forces; and their own dead 
strewed the ground, not only under the poplar-trees and all around the rectory and 
the church, but even in so sacred a spot as the sisters’ convent and the holy garden 
where the good nuns usually walked. 

It was at once a complete sweep which did not require the whole of that after- 
noon. Ido not know how many native birds remained after the fight, but can per- 
sonally aver that my eyes never saw a single one of them after that day. 

The greatest trouble the Twit-Twats found was to shelter themselves in their former 
abodes during the short time of the afternoon which remained from the moment of 
victory till sunset. It is well known that these birds retire into their holes and nests 
as soon as the orb of the sun sinks under the distant horizon. They had consequently 
scarcely half an hour to make their choice and occupy in peace their individual quar- 
ters. But such was the order established among them by their experienced commander 
that I could not perceive any quarrelling among them in so delicate an operation ; and 
when night arrived not only was the old Twit-Twat empire restored without the loss 
of a single one of the tribe, but peace reigned supreme and could not be disturbed 
any more. 


CHAPTER ak 
CHRISTMAS AGAIN—THE WINTER FESTIVAL OF THE SPARROWS. 


HE events related in the last chapter occupied nearly three months in 
their accomplishment. The Twit-Twat army, in fact, returned only on 
the 21st of December. Their scouts had rightly informed them of the 
opportune moment for their last onset. Had they come much sooner — 
they would no doubt have met a*fierce resistance from the still nume- 
rous native birds, and the result might have been even doubtful. As 
it turned out, the noble Twit-Twat chieftain could repeat long after 
Julius Cesar: Veni, vidi, vict. He had only to show himself at once 
to disperse the few disconnected bands of enemies that remained in 
the field. 

It turned out also that the victorious Twit-Twats had just three full days to rest 
before the arrival of Christmas. Had they delayed until the very eve of that great fes-. 
tival they would not have been able to enjoy it fully, but would have been obliged to 
spend the whole of it mournfully in a much-needed rest, either in their holes or in the 
immediate vicinity. And they would have had to postpone the celebration of their 
own winter festival, which generally happens to fall on that day, until New Year’s, or 
perhaps until the 6th of January. Had they been French birds they might not have 
felt the change so much, for the French generally consider New Year's, or la féte des 
Rois, as being on a par with the 25th of December. But the Twit-Twats, being Irish to 
the backbone, could not adopt such new-fangled notions ; they strictly stuck to the old 
Catholic calendar, which has always placed the birth of the Saviour far above the day of 
the Circumcision or the Epiphany. It was, therefore, much better that they should 
come just when they did. 

And first of all for three full days they enjoyed the delightful feeling of peace 
which had finally been granted them with every prospect of along duration. Peace, — 
heavenly Peace! How is it that thou art not better appreciated by men or sparrows ? 
How many blessings thou bringest in thy train which alone can make life enjoyable and 
this world an anticipation of heaven! Domestic contentment, national felicity, social 
happiness can be truly relished only inthe total absence of contention and war. Wher- 
ever there is strife life, in the palace or the cottage alike, is cheerless and gloomy. The 
highest success in war infallibly brings evils without number, which the nations soon 
88 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 89 


feel keenly. As to the social ties which make men inwardly happy by the vivid con- 
sciousness that there is a true brotherhood in mankind, it is during a profound peace 
alone that their strength is felt and their influence paramount. 

These things have been repeated thousands of times since the beginning of the 
world ; still men and birds continue to engage in contention upon the flimsiest pre- 
texts, such as a few disputed rods of territory, an acre or so of marshy ground, some 
bare rock or other at the end of a long chain of mountains, or any énappreciable advan- 
tage of that kind. 

At least at this moment peace seems to be deeply felt not only by the gleeful 
Twit-Twats, but by the numerous population of human beings residing: in Troy and its 
vicinity. They know that the Prince of Peace is born anew, and their hearts are over- 


_ flowing with “‘ the milk of human kindness.”’ It is Christmas morning, and joy is felt 


in the still and slightly frosty air. Towards the east you may already see the first 
blush of dawn; but it is still night overhead, and myriads of stars are twinkling in the 
blue firmament. Hear the silvery bells already sending their peals of jubilee through 
the tranquil atmosphere. Come out, all ye sincere Christians, come out of your peace- 
ful homes ; like the shepherds, you are called around a Saviour’s cradle. Clad in your 
best attire, travel in groups along the dimly-lighted streets. . There is the church yon- 
der, and streams of light begin to pour through its windows. There is time yet to 
reach it leisurely, and the bells continue to peal with both solemnity and merriment. 
Still, hasten on, hasten on; it is far better to be inside when the first notes of the organ 
shall be heard, soft as a whisper and tender as a love-ditty, than to linger outside on 
slippery sidewalks or the hard bed of the road. 

Who has not in his life experienced all the pleasant sensations of such an hour? 
Early Christmas morning is a happy moment which comes only once in the year, and is 
invariably treasured up afterwards in the sweetest corner of the memory. The age of 
the person makes scarcely any difference in the quality of the impression. A little girl 
of seven can almost as well appreciate the Babe of Bethlehem as her grandmother. She 
knows that His name is Jesus, which means Saviour. She has learned that His birth 
was announced by angels and ascertained by shepherds; that kings came afterwards 
before His crib, and thus high and low, rich and poor, acknowledged Him as their Re- 
deemer and their God. And, finally, she knows something of His laborious life and 
cruel death on a cross, of which she is reminded every time her lips are pressed upon 
the crucifix. 

What more need be known by the full-grown man or by the fully-developed wo- 
man? Have we not all of us the same main idea of the infant Saviour, and something 
of the same love for Him when our heart is not taken up by some unworthy passion ? 
Christmas morning, therefore, bears absolutely the same aspect for all Christians of any 
age, sex, or condition. 

See them at this moment filling the streets of Troy and the roads in the neighbor- 
hood. For it is not only around the celebrated poplar-trees, and in and about the con- 


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AT 
WA Hal | 


St. Joseph’s Church on early Christmas Morning. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 91 


vent, and throughout the whole extent of the renowned mayordom*—to coin a neces- 
sary word—of South Troy that the Christmas festival brings joy to the heart of man, 
woman, or child; but as far up north as the last limits of Lansingburg; as far down 
south as Greenbush itself, called sometimes East Albany; as far east as the distant 
source of the Poestenkill ; and west as far as old Schenectady itself, which. boasts of 
an existence older than that of Albany, or Fort Orange—consequently, in a good slice 
of Rensselaer County, and in a not inconsiderable portion of that of Albany—the scene 
we have to consider is enacted on gigantic proportions. Every, one knows that the same 
thing takes place everywhere on earth. But the scope of our story limits us to that 
part of the world whose centre is the city which is now blessed by the joyful presence 
of our dear Twit-Twats. It includes, therefore, besides a prosperous metropolis—Troy 
deserves the name—several large towns, such as Lansingburg, Cohoes, and West Troy, 
and an indefinite number of smaller villages disseminated at random over the whole 
territory. 

Tn all these places thousands upon thousands of happy people are thinking of one 
thing only—that is, Christmas morning ; and this thing implies the two sweetest figures 
that the earth has ever seen, Jesus and His Mother Mary! Look at the number of 
churches which are at this moment blazing with light and resonant with music. Skil- 
ful and ready hands have spent more than a week in cleaning and adorning them ; the 
forest has furnished its evergreens and the hothouse its garlands of sweet-scented 
flowers. Itis the reign of peace and harmony and tender feelings, and the churches 
are the necessary centres of all those sweet emotions. We might limit ourselves to 
consider solely those churches where the Divine Babe can be found not only represent- 
ed outside of the altar reclining on a crib, but actually present in the tabernacle to re- 
joice His faithful adorers, repose a moment on their lips, and go to rest in their enrap- 
tured hearts. Many such places, thank God! can be found in the happy district that 
has been just described ; and on that day they seem to have lost their individual 
names of St. Patrick’s and St. Bridget’s and St. Peter’s, even those of St. Mary’s and 
St. Joseph’s, to fill the worshipper’s memory by the only recollection of the Cave of 
Bethlehem. We might do so, and not even think of other places of worship, without 
any one casting on usa slur on account of our exclusiveness ; because our Church 
alone goes as far back as the true day of the Saviour’s birth and the true spot where 
Mary received Him in her arms. 

But we must remember that all those who celebrate the day with respect and some- 


* Twenty-seven years ago I became acquainted with a certain Mr. Martin Russell, who lived in a cottage at the 
southwest corner of Third and Madison Streets, in Troy He related to me that more than thirty years before he lived 
alone on the same spot, which was then a wilderness. Soon, however, two new-comers arrived, and one winter eve- 
ning the three together, standing around the stove, agreed to call the place South Troy, and the new friends of Mr. 
Russell elected him mayor of the village in perpetuwm—that is, during his life, henceforth he took the title of his 
dignity, and in my time it would have been almost an insult not to address him as Mr. Mayor, Poor Martin Russell f 
He was a genial man and friendly to everybody. He has, nevertheless, ceased to be mayor of South Troy, as his 
dignity was conferred only for life, and he is, 1 think, now dead. 


92 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


thing like unto veneration, all those who recognize in the Child just born their God and 
Redeemer, have at least a faint recollection of the profound mysteries which have 
always made of the 25th of December one of the greatest, if not absolutely the hap- 
piest, day of the whole Christian year. Whoever recognizes God as his Creator, and 
the only-begotten Son of God as his Saviour, hasa right to the beautiful name of 
Christian ; and, consequently, for that day which is the only one we can now think of 
we will consider as our brethren those numerous flocks of happy people also who go 
to the Episcopalian churches of St. Paul and of St. John and of the Holy Cross, and 
wheresoever are inscribed in evergreen the well-known words of Isaias: ‘‘ A Child is born 
to us, and a Son is given to us, . . . and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsel- 
lor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace” ; for they 
also have listened to the inward voice which calls them to adore with humility ‘the 
Word made flesh,” the Son of the Father in eternity and of the meek Mary in time. 
Unfortunately all these people will not find the tabernacle with its precious gift, as 
everything with them is representative and not substantial ; they will enjoy a shadow 
only, as the Jews did of old, but this shadow is at least a sweet one, and who knows if 
God will not one day tear asunder the veil and show them the substance? At least 
they do not share in the infatuation of those dark Puritans who made Christmas a day 
of gloom, and would not on that day allow their choir, if they had such a thing, to in- 
tone a hymn in honor of the infant God, of whom their Bible spoke to their eyes but 
not to their heart. 

But, thank God again! these children of Knox and Calvin have been at last hu- 
manized by the universal joy which Christmas day inspires in the hearts of the hard- 
est. What a miracle, such as the hand of the Almighty alone could perform: the 
descendants of the harsh soldiers of Cromwell in England, and of the stern Huguenots 
in France, no longer object to a celebration of some kind in their churches or to hear 
the organ peal, and they even sing something like our own Venite adoremus ! 

It isa step, though a reluctant one, in the right direction. But will they come so 
far towards us as to exhibit in their meeting-houses on that day the image of Mary 
with the Child on her knees, with old Joseph behind, and with the ox and ass on both 
sides of the crib? If they do, I, for one, answer for their salvation. 

But to return to our theme. Was not all this a proof that there was joy in Troy on 
that special day of Christmas, 187-? How different from that of the year previous! 
The reader remembers that the 25th of December which ushered in the unfortunate 
Twit-Twats on the broad stage of our story was one of gloom and almost of despair. . 
To appreciate the complete contrast between the two epochs, think not only of the dis- 
consolate and woe-begone condition of the birds a year ago, so sprightly and hopeful 
to-day. Remember, too, what was then said of many men for whom Christmas brings 
no change in their wretched condition, and who have to spend it in their miserable 
cabins with nothing on their table different from their ordinary meagre fare. This had 
been the case the year before in many houses in Troy, owing to a long suspension of 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 93 


work ; but on this happy Christmas of 187- there did not seem to be a single dwelling- 
house in the city or in the country round about without an appetizing dinner tempting- 
ly smoking on a well-prepared board, and a comfortable and joyful family seated in 
expectation. If all had not a turkey before them, at least there was the usual substi- 
tute—the renowned Christmas goose, which for many appreciative Milesians is sweeter 
to the tooth than the celebrated American fowl. How many jokes were cracked on the 
bird and those that ate it! How many little boys of ten or twelve teased their big 
sisters of fifteen on the slender portion they had received ! 

Tt is true that all these details are worse than commonplace ; but human life in its 
happiest moments is made up of such trifles, and the heart expands under the influence 
of the most ordinary incidents. One thing is certain: that if Christians in Troy were 
not served with nectar and ambrosia, as they say was served to the gods on Olympus, 
what.they ate and drank was just as pleasing ; and, what was still better, there was no 
after-dinner quarrel among them, such as took place more ee once at Jupiter’s 
board, if we must believe Homer himself. 

Happening to enter on the evening of that day a house whither I often went to 
visit the children (for they were more numerous there than elsewhere, though there was, 
thank God! no lack of them anywhere that I could see), I was highly gratified by the 
sight of a Christmas-tree. This laudable custom has come to us from Germany, I think. 
It was not often that the same could be seen in my parish, because, I suppose, it is not 
a custom of Tipperary. What a fableau vivant I had then under my eyes! Fifteen 
children from three years of age to twenty-two, all in a circle around a fine spruce sap- 
ling loaded with bundles of every description! Father and mother, of course, distri- 
buted the prizes ; and if some unlucky chance excited in the heart of the recipient a 
feeling of disappointment at the oddity of a gift, that was only the more amusing for 
the fourteen other children, and caused them to laugh boisterously and jump and clap 
their hands. Just after I had entered and taken my seat the biggest boy (of twenty- 
two) received for his share a great boot made of pasteboard that dangled from the very 
top of the tree, and everybody looked eagerly to know what this mysterious boot con- 
tained. I shall not enumerate everything, as the list would be too long. The misfor- 
tune was that this list was composed mainly of parcels all alike—that is to say, of 
sheets of brown paper perfectly empty when they were unfolded, and the disconsolate 
youth of twenty-two had to unfold fifty of them at least before he came to the last, 
which contained just a small stick of candy of the size of my finger. What a hurrah 
followed this discovery ! 

Such were the simple delights of the people. But our main object is to describe 
the pleasures of birds, and we have not, as it were, even touched the subject. Had the 
Twit-Twats their Christmas day? Yes! I have said that at that time they invariably 
enjoy their winter festival, which may be considered as a Christmas for birds, who 
have no soul to save, no sins to deplore, and no virtues to practise. 

And to be exact on the subject—for astronomy and theology are concerned in it—I 


94. THE TWIT-TWATS. 


must state precisely what are the ideas and practices of the Twit-Twats in so important 
amatter. In the evolutionary process which goes on constantly for them, as for every-- 
thing else, if we must believe Mr. Darwin, they have not yet reached the exact calcula- 
tions by which man has ascertained the precise recurrence of Christmas. It is well 
known that among us all movable feasts depend on Easter Sunday, and it has 
taken us centuries of learned researches to come toa reliable conclusion. The spar- 
rows, always wise in their instinctive appreciation of things in general, have thought 
that they could dispense with the extraordinary labor undertaken by man to reach a 
true astronomical result on the subject. As they are so clumsy in their nest-building, 
they prudently inferred that it would be foolish on their part to tempt fortune in the 
construction of optical instruments. Their eyes, which are much keener than ours, 
suffice for them, and they certainly often look at the sun and the moon and the stars 
for some definite purpose of their own. With their sight alone they could have calcu- 
lated the conjunction of planets, which is so important in the question under investiga- 
tion. But they preferretl to rely on man’s calculations, which they thought were safe 
enough for all useful purposes. The great difficulty with the sparrows in the present 
case was that their ideas of ¢ime are not so precise as ours, although they undoubtedly 
know to a certain extent what time is. Yet it is doubtful if they have reached the 
notions of minutes and seconds ; nay, we would not dogmatically decide that they have 
a precise idea of hours. The days even, to consider the question fairly, depend for 
them more on the weather than on the invariable circle of twenty-four hours. And this 
last consideration is of such extreme importance that we shall presently come back to it. 

They certainly decided among themselves that their winter festival should be cele- 
brated on the day appointed for Christmas among us. For the happy recurrence of 
that great epoch for man had not escaped their observation. It was to be hoped that, 
since everything is instinctive among them, and instinct usually acts as regularly as 
clock-work, there would always be an exact correspondence between their great period of 
winter enjoyment and song (such as we are soon going to describe) and our own festivi- 
tas festivitatum, which constantly falls on:the 25th of December. Unfortunately, what 
has just been said of their indistinct notion of time becomes often a fatal cause of dis- 
agreement between them and ourselves. It has been justly remarked that they judge 
of time almost altogether by the state of the weather, and this sadly interferes with 
their calendar. 

But have they, in fact, a calendar at all? It is probable they have not, either 
written or unwritten. If they had, and rain should happen to pour down on a day 
marked in their almanac as a feast of uncommonly high degree, they would do as men 
invariably do, and rest and gambol and play in the most unpropitious weather. But 
they never think of being so foolish. They have only one resource left in such a case 
—they postpone their festival until the first bright day. In this they are wise, though 
they show themselves to be very poor astronomers. This was the first point announced 
a few paragraphs back ; sparrow astronomy was the first consideration, 


THE TWIT-TWATS, 95 


Are they better theologians? A word must suffice on this mighty question. In 
very truth, this has already been decided, for it has been said with justice that ‘‘ they 
have no soul to save, no sins to deplore, no virtues to practise.’’ There are, however, 
some qualifications to this pregnant phrase which must detain us fora moment. They 
are certainly creatures of God; their Maker has imposed upon them laws which they 
sacredly respect and obey. Since they have ‘‘no sins to deplore,’’ they are in one 
sense more acceptable to God than those monstrous sinners who continue to prevaricate 
_ as long as they live, and leap into eternity without a sigh of repentance or a single cry 
for mercy. But there is much more than this. Read the Psalms of holy David, and 
the songs of the three children in the fiery furnace : 

**O ye fountains, bless the Lord; . . . O ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord; .* . 
Oyewhales, . . . bless the Lord; . . . Oall ye row1s of the air, bless the Lord ; 
praise and exalt Him above all for ever.”’ 

The sparrows themselves, consequently, are invited by the Holy Ghost himself— 
the true inspirer of David and Daniel—‘‘to bless the Lord, to praise and exalt Him 
above all for ever.” Will anybody accuse me after this of gross anthropomorphism— 
nay, of idolatry, and perhaps fetichism—if I tell my readers that in the great winter 
festival which Iam going to describe the Twit-Twats actually ‘‘blessed the Lord, and 
praised and exalted Him above all for ever’’? They were, therefore, to a certain ex- 
tent, good theologians. 

The last preliminary to this description so often announced, and evidently so impa- 
tiently expected, will consist in the remark that for this year of 187— the winter festi- 
val of the sparrows coincided exactly with the Christian’s Christmas day. As the 
weather was all that could be desired, the Twit-Twats were not reduced to the sad 
necessity of postponing it, but early in the morning, when the people were still in 
church, as has been seen, they began their gambols ; but particularly in the afternoon, 
when Trojan Christians were relishing their Christmas dinner, all the trees in the ave- 
nues and streets of the city, above all the renowned Lombardy poplars near the St. 
Joseph’s rectory, and the vines and creepers of the friendly convent, were literally 
swarming with peaceful armies of sparrows, among whom the Twit-Twats were first and 
foremost in the whole number. 

As to the morning, they were rather lazy. They unfortunately do not pay much 
attention to bells, and all the chimes in the city and the suburbs could not bring them 
out of their holes. But when the first High Mass was nearly finished, and the organ- 
ists in the various Catholic churches were still going on with Lambilotte’s Christmas 
Pastoral, so lively and dramatic, the sun at last peacefully arose in the east, shorn of its 
rays, it is true, and still immersed in the thick vapors of Tethys’ aquatic kingdom-- 
the reader must forgive this mythological reminiscence. True enough, however, it was 
the sun, and the sparrows’ instinct could not be deceived. Out they came from their 
deep sleep, and began to stir themselves about to show that they were alive. They at 
once thought of their festival, and saw with pleasure that there was no need of a post- 


96 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


ponement. They set at it right away, and as the people were leaving the churches the . 
sparrows were to be seen and heard wherever you went. 

To be sure they were not yet firing their big guns. For it is to be remarked that 
in their great social displays they follow the example of the French in their most 
solemn national celebrations. I used often to remark this in France when I was a boy. 
In the forenoon of those great days of la St. Lowis under the Bourbons, Za St. Napoléon 
under the Empire, or la Ste. République the remainder of the time, there was in the 
morning absolutely nothing of consequence save the firing of cannons by the military, 
which nobody went to see except old bummers or young gamins. But in the after-— 
noon and evening all sorts of amusements were crowded together—rope-walking by 
acrobats, climbing the greasy pole for sailors and slaters, music by the band of the 
regiment, regattas on the Loire, races on foot and on horseback, feats of magic by jug- 
glers, Punch and Judy in the open air, grand-style comedy @ la Place Graslin, and 
finally great displays of fireworks after sunset. 

This usual French programme the Twit-Twats carried through in their winter fes- 
tivals to the letter ; the morning affair was intended only to whet the appetite. Their 
mock fight with artillery was also after the French model. Not that they used colum- 
biads or thirty-six and twenty-four pounders. The noise came from their throats 
only, and consequently could not even stun you. It would better express it, perhaps, 
to say that it somewhat resembled the explosion of small crackers such as little boys 
and girls use in this happy country every 4th of July morning, when the City Coun- 
cil does not forbid it by ordinance. But it was far from being so annoying; so that 
there is no fear that the Mayor and Aldermen of New York will ever think of abolish- 
ing the sparrow custom. Not only this, but the people who were returning home from 
Mass seemed to like it very much, and on one occasion I saw a troop of women stop in 
their walk to look up at the sparrows, and I heard one of them say to one of the spar- 
rows: ‘‘Cheer up, little birdy, and keep up your spirits till this afternoon.” 

The afternoon, in fact, was to give me a sample of a genuine birds’ winter festival 
such as I have often witnessed in this country. 

This extraordinary display is often seen in the sparrows’ republic whenever a few 
days of mild weather intervene in the cold months of the year. But when this happens 
exactly on the 25th of December it is accompanied with uncommon splendor and _ infal- 
libly surprises the beholder. And let not the reader suppose there is any fiction in all 
this. It can be witnessed by any one who chooses to pay attention to it almost any 
day that the air is soft and the atmosphere pleasant during our long winters; and it 
can be particularly studied at leisure in the quiet suburbs of those cities where the 
birds have permanently established their quarters. It is in circumstances of this kind 
that I have myself been often struck by it ; but it was always in the early part of the 
afternoon that I observed it, and the sun was invariably shining gently and mildly at 
the time. Shortly before sunset the birds’ activity is still greater than at any other 
part of the day, and everything is then seen to the best advantage. 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 97 


On the great occasion which now deserves all our attention I was looking for some- 
thing better than usual, but was far from anticipating what I was really to witness. 
After our Christmas dinner, upon going to my room and opening the door, I perceived 
through both my windows a great agitation in the Lombardy poplars in front. The 
trees were, of course, quite bare, yet looked as if miraculously covered with foliage, 
and at the same time as if their hanging leaves were all rocking under the sway of a 
gentle wind. I ran at once to one of the windows without opening it, and judge of my 
surprise at what I saw. : 

What I first took to be poplar-leaves were nothing less than a multitude of my 
dear Twit-Twats. They literally covered all the branches and the smallest twigs of 
the trees. They occupied every possible position that a sparrow can take, but the 
position of each was constantly shifting, as if it had been absolutely impossible for 
them to remain a moment quiet. I confess that I never witnessed such an extra- 
ordinary agility displayed by any acrobat. It is true I was not lucky enough to 
see the celebrated Blondin’s feats, but I think I have looked on his equal more than 
once. Did I not once see a bold fellow, perched on a rope just sixty feet from the 
ground, suddenly jump through a paper balloon, and, as everybody thought he 
would fall and dash out his brains on the pavement below, catch the rope he had just 
left and appear again in his former proud position? But it was nothing to many of 
my sparrows’ pranks. 

And mind that when you are admiring an acrobat he is alone, or perhaps he is ac- 
companied by a couple of poor fellows like himself, and the three together are lost in 
space at a height of nearly one hundred feet above your head. But in each of the 
Lombardy poplars there were hundreds of acrobats, all dancing and jumping and fly- 
ing about, and returning to their former perch, resting on one foot or on both, as you 
liked best. For they appeared to consult your wishes; and when you said to yourself, 
How I should like to see this or that! it immediately happened as you had desired. 

Now, to render this spectacle more interesting the sun was shining as brightly as 
it ever can in December, and its rays, already declining toward the west, were gently 
touching the glass of my windows after having passed through the maze of the play- 
ing birds. It was a pleasure to look at these freaks of light. Having been used long, 
long ago to study optics, and catoptrics, and dioptrics, and all that, I could easily fol- 
low the action of the laws of nature as to the diffusion, refraction, reflection, and decom- 
position of light into its primitive colors. After a few moments’ attention I could dis- 
tinguish as many small rainbows as there were spaces between the sparrows and the 
trees, and without a glass prism at all I had under my eyes as many prismatic colors as 
I could wish. 

The material laws of the world, therefore, were combining together with the social 
laws guiding sparrows and men to render this winter festival complete in all respects. 
Nature had taken her best attire and decked herself with all her finery to help the 
gentle Twit-Twats “to bless the Lord and praise Him above all for ever.” 


98 THE TWIT-TWATS. 


And, to complete the happy combination of all things toward the same object, there 
was music also, but not the music of trumpets and clarions. The harmony was far 
sweeter than that, and it deserves a particular description, which I think I am war- 
ranted to give, for (to speak scientifically) I have made a particular study of every kind 
of sparrow counterpoint. 

I think I have already spoken of their screams when fighting and pursuing each 
other in the summer or the spring-time ; but this can scarcely be called music. I may 
have mentioned also the frank and open baritone voice with which the individuals of 
each couple answer one another from two different and often distant branches. But in 
their winter festivals they do not use such primitive music as that. The same may 
almost be said of the gentler songs they usually employ in their private colloquies, 
when they are near each other, in small groups of three or four, and they speak in sing- 
ing tones (for their language is always more or less musical). Even then the softness 
of the melody cannot compare with what is heard, for instance, in the afternoon of the 
25th of every December. A word has likewise been said a few paragraphs back of the 
more harmonious strain issuing from their throats at early morning, when they first 
awake and the trees are alive with dancing -birds and resound with their twitter. It 
has been said with justice that their music at that particular moment somewhat resem- 
bles the incessant explosions of fire-crackers early in the morning of the Fourth of July. 
But even this cannot in the least be compared to the soft warbling of their winter festi- 
vals, for this last is far more subdued and it blends in real harmony. You would im- 

_agine that hundreds and hundreds of Aolian harps suspended in the air were at the 
same instant receiving the softest touch of the gentlest of zephyrs. Nor ought any 
one suppose that the bands of military music which I have often heard in Nantes in 
my native France on great national celebrations could enchant me as much as the har- 
mony I was privileged to listen to in Troy at the great Christmas festival of 187-. 

As to climbing the greasy pole, the regattas, the races on foot and on horseback, 
the feats of magic, the tragical drama of Punch and Judy, and the grand-style comé- 
dies bourgeoises usual in France on great occasions, it might be easily proved that the 
Twit-Twats either enjoyed the best features of all these entertainments or had some 
amusements of a far higher order to compensate for the absence of any of them. The 
only thing they lacked was fireworks, for which they had no fancy, as they were inva- 
riably asleep in their holes at the time when fireworks should be displayed. 


After having witnessed from my room so delightful a sight as I have described, I 
determined to find out if anything similar was going on in places beyond the reach of 
vision from my windows. It had been wisely arranged that the grand Vespers in the 
church should for that day be sung in the evening at half-past six. This would give 
time to all the parishioners to protract their dinners till late in the afternoon, if they 
chose. T had, therefore, leisure to pursue my researches, and from my house I went 
straight to the convent and its neighborhood, thence along Fourth Street as far as the 


THE TWIT-TWATS. 99 


bridge over Poestenkill Creek, and then, crossing over to Third and First Streets, I 
knew that I should find plenty of trees along those thoroughfares, which would give 
me a grand opportunity of ascertaining a matter of so great interest to me. 

What I saw at all points gratified me beyond expression. First, every human 
being happening to be then at his dinner or engaged in conversation with his friends, 
there was the greatest stillness and peace on all sides. It looked as if that part of the 
city had been suddenly transformed into a solitude. No wagons or cars in the streets; 
no urchins to distract you on the way ; neither were there gloomy pedestrians nor bois- 
terous groups with their jokes and laughter. The Twit-Twats had the whole district to 
themselves, and they knew, the little rogues, how to improve their opportunity. The 
splendid feats of rope-dancing that had enchanted me under my windows were going 
on in all directions as far as you could see. But I found with surprise and pleasure 
that the best exploits of that kind were performed along the Creek, where there were 
no trees of any kind. A great number of telegraph poles and wires were in that neigh- 
borhood, whilst there was not a single wire near my house. I am sure that the spar- 
rows imagined, innocent souls! that the posts had been planted in the ground and the 
wires stretched across lots and river only for their own special benefit. Troops of spar- 
rows were either perched on the wires, resting for a moment, or hanging from them in 
trapeze style and describing every sort of curve. Blondin or any other acrobat, as I 
think I called him, could not have competed with them in that healthful exercise. 

As to the music, it was everywhere a repetition of what I had heard from the rec- 
tory. I have spoken of hundreds of Molian harps; I found in my rambles: that it 
would be more exact to speak of thousands of them. But the quality of the melody 
was everywhere the same. Our great composers, in order, with their usual systems of 
notation, to express this music, would have to employ exclusively those signs which 
mark the nearly inaudible whispers, the sighs and hushed sounds by which they gene- 
rally express the fall of the dew, the movement of light, and the silence that follows 
thunder ! 

There is no exaggeration here. Whoever has been present at one of the sparrows’ 
great winter festivals must agree that it is true, and that their music on these occasions 
is peculiar to these, and is never employed by the birds for any other object. As we 
say that with us a melancholy song must be written in a minor key, so of the sparrows 
it must be maintained that for winter festivals nothing can be used in the composition 
except whispers and sighs, intermixed with silence. It is something like what you 
hear on the sea-shore when the still waters of the ocean ebb slowly away, and sing a 
dreamy ditty by playing on the diminutive shells of the beach. 


How could so happy a day pass off so rapidly? For the end of it soon came, and 
memory alone could call it back. But at least the profound peace which had distin- 
guished it remained. 

Every cause of alarm was removed by the complete disappearance of the boister- 


100 THE TWI'T-TWATS. 


ous native birds, who were never heard of afterwards. The Twit-Twat empire was sure- 
ly to last for a long period at least, since nothing here below is eternal ; and its annals 
since could all be comprised in a few insignificant phrases, as is usual with the history 
of all happy nations. The great Christmas day of 187- inaugurated this era of peace, 
and must on this account remain for ever enshrined in my memory. 

But it is not that day alone which continues dear and sweet in my remembrance. 
The reader can easily imagine that the whole year occupied in my observations and re- 
flections was a period of entrancing enjoyment and happiness. It was about that time 
that I received occasional visits from a Protestant lady who had placed herself under 
my direction and instruction to be admitted into the Church. On one occasion she ex- 
pressed a kind of sorrow that my lot was cast in the midst of poor people living by . 
hard labor, unrefined, and incapable, she thought, of casting any glow of poetry over 
my life among them. 

‘You mistake, madam,’’ I replied; ‘‘and this remark comes, I suppose, rather 
from what you have heard than from your own feelings. On the point of becoming a 
child of the true Church, you know that the salvation of souls is more important and 
delightful than poetry ; and I assure you that in this very place there is for a Christian 
pastor an infinite delight in leading to heaven pure, though perhaps unrefined, souls, 
full of gratitude for what is done for them, and so easy to lead that there is scarcely 
ever any difficulty in our ministry. But besides this interior world of the Christian 
spirit, which is as full—if not fuller—of beauty, in the midst of such a people as live 
around me as among the most educated and refined, there is, I tell you, true poetry on 
all sides. The only thing needed is to know how to discern and find it. Why, madam, 
in this poor spot, as you imagine, there is rather too much of it, and for conscience’ 
sake I have often to turn away my eyes from this exterior glitter and fall back on more 
solid food, which I feel I need to fulfil my strict duty as a Catholic priest. To obey 
Christ’s injunction we must be the ‘salt of the earth’; and of all the materials of 
which the earth is composed salt is perhaps the least poetical and calculated to excite 
the imagination. We are not denied, however, the right of making a proper use of 
that faculty, and in this our advantage is as great at least as that of any other man, 
whatever may be his ability. Our holy religion is a perpetual well-spring of the pur- 
est, highest, and holiest imagination ; and on this account alone, not taking the solid 
part of our ministry into account, I would not exchange my place with that of Mr. 
Beecher, who may be surrounded by crowds of fashionable people, and receives from 
them, I hear, twenty-five thousand dollars a year for his salary! I do not receive from 
my parishioners, thank Heaven! any other salary than their affection ; but I expect 
my reward from God.” 

This little speech appeared to produce a deep impression on the good lady to whom 
it was addressed, and soon after she entered the Church. 


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